Waiting for the Sun
by Jaden Malfoy87
Summary: Five months ago, Harry defeated Voldemort, but tensions are still running high at Hogwarts between Slytherin House and the other students. Ginny Weasley views the Slytherins as the enemy, but when Draco Malfoy returns to school, she is forced to see things from a new perspective.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:** This fic was written for the DG Forum's Summer 2017 Fic Exchange. It was the winner for 8 awards, including all 3 Character Awards and Best Fanfiction Overall. The prompt I received, which in itself was truly amazing, can be found at the end of this chapter. Much thanks to Kyla for providing said prompt.

The title for this fic was taken from Paramore's song _We Are Broken_ , which served as a sort of inspiration for the fic. It's an excellent song and I encourage you to check if out, if you're not already familiar with it.

While I was writing this fic, I mentioned to a few people - most notably my cabin mates from Camp Nanowrimo ;) - that I would be expanding this fic from the version I submitted to the exchange. And...I ultimately decided not to do that. I thought I would expand past what is now the final chapter, but I've decided I like the ending where it is...not a complete happily ever after, but a hopeful ending all the same.

There are a total of 6 chapters for this fic, and though I'm doing some final polishing as I go, I will try to get them up fairly quickly.

* * *

CHAPTER ONE

The news broke at breakfast the morning after the Halloween feast. The same words on everyone's lips, the only thing anyone could talk about.

"Malfoy's back."

"Draco Malfoy."

"He's here. He's come back to Hogwarts."

Ginny sat staring at her kippers and eggs and tried not to listen. She had already known that Malfoy was coming back. She'd received an owl about it three days ago. She hadn't told anyone, not Luna, not Hermione. Although, given the source of the owl, it was likely that Hermione already knew, too.

Ginny wasn't sure why she hadn't said anything. Because it didn't matter, she told herself. Malfoy didn't matter. Of course, all the gossip it had caused made it clear that it _did_ matter, to many people, and if Ginny was honest with herself, it mattered to her too.

She just didn't want to admit it.

She wasn't sure how Harry had known. He was the one who'd sent the owl, the only communication Ginny had had with him since last they spoke. But then, she wasn't really surprised, given how chummy he and Malfoy were these days. All right, "chummy" was probably taking it a bit too far, but. Ginny had accused Harry of far worse the last time she'd seen him.

Apparently, Malfoy had returned yesterday evening, ensconcing himself in the Slytherin dungeons while everyone was at the Halloween feast. Probably so he could get settled in without a lot of stares and whispers behind his back. And yet, though he hadn't come to the Great Hall for breakfast this morning, everyone knew he was back. Word traveled fast at Hogwarts.

"Why do you s'pose he came back?"

"Why have any of the old seventh years come back? To have a proper year, of course. Get his N.E.W.T. qualifications—"

Ginny lifted her gaze just enough to see a boy in her year, across the table and a little ways down, roll his eyes. "Please. If anyone managed to have a proper year last year, it was Malfoy. Death Eater scum. No reason he couldn't take his N.E.W.T.s this summer, like some of the others did."

Ginny wrapped her hands tightly around her goblet of pumpkin juice, unable to shut out the rest of the conversation.

"Well, he was a bit tied up this summer, wasn't he?"

"Well, whenever then. And what does he need N.E.W.T.s for anyway? Not like he needs a job, his Death Eater dad never had one."

"Well, I expect his mum wanted him to take them." This came from Parvati Patil, down on Ginny's left. "I heard that's why Blaise Zabini came back."

"Still, doesn't explain why any of the Slytherins came _back_ , does it?" Seamus Finnegan grumbled. "They didn't spend the year getting tortured and hiding out in the Room of Requirement, did they? None of them need a proper year of Muggle Studies, do they? They all could've just taken their N.E.W.T.s and have done with this place."

A number of "the old seventh years"—meaning last year's seventh years—had come back to Hogwarts for "a proper last year." Many of them were Muggleborns who had missed last year entirely, like Justin Finch-Fletchley, Dean Thomas, and of course, Hermione, who probably could have tested out but had returned anyway. (No surprise there.) Others were like Seamus, who had missed enough of the year hiding out that he wasn't prepared to take his N.E.W.T.s yet. And then, of course, there were others like Hermione—mostly Ravenclaws—who simply wanted a proper year of classes to finish out their schooling.

But there was also a small number of Slytherins—Blaise Zabini, Gregory Goyle, Millicent Bulstrode, and a couple of other girls Ginny didn't know—who had come back as well. And why they should need to, or want to, no one really understood.

"Malfoy shouldn't even be walking around free," someone complained, a fifth year Ginny didn't know. "After everything he did? He should be rotting in Azkaban, him and his parents."

"I heard," said Vicky Frobisher, a Muggleborn girl who had been in Ginny's year, "that Potter spoke for him to the Ministry. Told them Malfoy shouldn't serve any prison time."

Ginny didn't have to look up to know there were eyes on her now. It wasn't like her, to stay quiet and keep her thoughts to herself, and there _was_ a part of her that wanted to snap at them all to stop staring, and to say—

To say—what? She didn't know. She didn't know what she _could_ say. She'd already said it all to Harry, and that conversation wasn't anyone's business.

Luckily, Dean spoke up instead. "If Harry thought Malfoy shouldn't do prison time, then I agree with him. I trust Harry."

This seemed to put an end to most of the gossip about Malfoy. Parvati Patil began discussing what might come up on her Defense Against the Dark Arts exam tomorrow morning, and when Ginny looked up, no one was looking at her at all.

But then, as he went back to his porridge, Seamus muttered, "Yeah, well, Harry wasn't around last year while we were stuck with Malfoy, was he?"

Ginny knew she should've said something then. Something to defend Harry. Or at least, she should've pointed out that wasn't fair. And a part of her believed that.

But she didn't say anything.

Ginny didn't catch a glimpse of Draco Malfoy until the next day, and even then, it really was just a glimpse. That first day he was back, the day after Halloween, she was told she had just missed him when she came into the Great Hall for lunch, and he didn't turn up at dinner at all. So it was the next morning, at breakfast, that Ginny finally saw him, getting up from his House table just as she was sitting down to hers.

She might've missed him entirely if it weren't for the flash of white blond hair as he stood, because,surprisingly, he wasn't sitting with any of the other returned seventh years. Goyle, pretty boy Zabini, and a couple of girls that used to hang out with Pansy Parkinson were all sitting near the center of the table, close to a handful of seventh years from Ginny's year. But Malfoy was totally alone, near the end of the table, and as he stood, no one said anything to him and he didn't say anything to anyone. He left the Great Hall quickly, disappearing through the open double doors.

She didn't see him up close until Thursday morning. She'd overslept and skipped breakfast to get to Transfiguration on time, only halfway there, she realized she'd forgotten her textbook and had to run back to the dorm to get it. She was breathing heavily, her hair flying wild around her, when she finally reached the classroom just in time.

And then she stopped dead in the doorway.

Malfoy was there. In her Transfiguration class. Sitting in the back row, in the corner.

"Are you coming in or not, Miss Weasley?" Professor Chambers, the new Transfiguration teacher, asked impatiently.

Trying not to flush more than she already was, Ginny stepped inside, taking the seat beside Hermione, who wore a disapproving look.

"Well, why didn't you wake me this morning!" Ginny demanded in a whisper.

"I left early for the library," Hermione replied.

There was nothing Ginny could say to that, except to wonder, disgruntled, why neither Parvati nor Demelza had tried to wake her either. As Chambers instructed them to take out their book, Ginny ran a hand through her disheveled hair and tried, very hard, not to turn and stare at Malfoy.

She wanted to ask Hermione what she knew about his being in the class, but she couldn't very well do that while class was going on, and anyway, Ginny couldn't think of any reason why he _shouldn't_ be in the class. It was the seventh year Transfiguration N.E.W.T. class, and contained some students from Ginny's year, as well as returning seventh years like Hermione. Malfoy wasn't even the only Slytherin; both Harper and Vaisey, from Ginny's year, were in the class. Harper was sitting next to Malfoy, though he'd looked stone-faced when Ginny came in, his body angled slightly away from Malfoy.

As soon as class was over, Ginny jumped up from her seat, then had to wait for Hermione, who was not in such a hurry as she packed everything into her bag. This gave Ginny a few seconds to throw a surreptitious glance Draco's way, as he was also taking his time packing up his things. Harper and Vaisey left without a word to him.

"What happened this morning?" Hermione asked, as they left the classroom. "You overslept?"

"Yes, and I'm _starving_ ," Ginny moaned. "I don't know how I'm going to get through Muggle Studies before lunch— _damn_." She glanced down at the haphazard pile of book and parchment in her arm and realized she'd left her Transfiguration book back in the classroom. Merlin, she was a mess this morning. "Hang on, I left my book—"

She whirled around, but before she'd taken half a step, she smacked right into someone, _banging_ her elbow and dropping half of her things in the process.

" _Ow_ ," Ginny mumbled, staring down in dismay at her scattered parchment. "Sorry, I—"

She broke off as she looked up. And up and up, as the person she'd run into was quite tall.

It was Malfoy.

Ginny's apology died on her lips. She didn't move, and neither did Malfoy. In her mind, all she could see was last year, Malfoy, _last year_ , in the Great Hall and in the corridor and on the Quidditch pitch and _everywhere_ —

The words were out of her mouth before she'd thought about them. "Watch where you're going, Malfoy," she snapped. The flash of anger that zipped through her felt good, a welcome heat of righteousness and contempt.

Malfoy's pale face turned scornful in the space of a second, his gray eyes narrowing, his mouth beginning to curve into his all-too familiar sneer. But then—just as quickly—the look faded from his face. What was left in its place was something quite…uncertain…as he looked from Ginny to Hermione.

Then he stuck his hands in his pockets and hurried away without a word.

Ginny stared after him, astonished, watching him vanish down the crowded corridor. Then she realized people were beginning to trod on her notes, and she quickly bent to scoop them up. "That was weird." She stuffed everything into her bag and looked at Hermione. "That was weird, right?"

"I suppose." Hermione's narrowed eyes were less hostile and more pensive as she stared after Malfoy. "Maybe."

" _Maybe?_ Maybe what? Malfoy just ran into me and then he didn't say anything—"

" _You_ ran into him, Ginny," Hermione cut in.

This was true—obviously true, as Ginny headed back to the Transfiguration classroom for her book, the source of the run-in in the first place—but Ginny could not help the rush of annoyed consternation that swept through her. "Oh, not you too," she grumbled.

"Not me too…?" Hermione prompted. "What are you talking about?"

"Nothing. Never mind."

Hermione stood in the doorway and waited in silence as Ginny retrieved her book and stuffed it into her bag. In fact, neither of them said anything until they had left the classroom behind and were back in the corridor. That was when Hermione said, "If you're talking about Harry…"

"I am _not_ talking about Harry," Ginny interrupted, perhaps with more vitriol than was necessary. "Why would I be talking about Harry?"

Hermione didn't respond, but she _did_ raise an annoyingly knowing eyebrow.

Ginny huffed a breath. "I may have been talking about Harry's new, fuzzy feelings towards Malfoy—"

"Harry does not have fuzzy feelings about Malfoy." Hermione looked amused. "If he's shown some compassion for him—"

"If? _If?_ "

"—well, he has better insight than most into where Malfoy was coming from, Ginny, these past two years. He was there on the Astronomy Tower sixth year—"

"When Malfoy tried to murder Dumbledore, you mean."

"—when he _didn't_ murder Dumbledore. And he saw Draco through Voldemort's own mind, he saw what Voldemort was forcing him to do—"

"Torturing people, you mean?"

"—and he was there at Malfoy Manor last spring, and so was I, Ginny—"

"When they tortured you!"

"When Bellatrix Lestrange tortured me." Hermione shook her head. "Ginny, even I could see that Malfoy didn't want any part of it. He wouldn't identify us for his parents, for Bellatrix—"

"Like that makes it all okay!" Ginny burst out. This was exactly the argument she'd had with Harry, and he'd been the same way, so _blind_ — "Letting Death Eaters into the school, and everything he did last year—"

Hermione stopped in the middle of the corridor and turned to face Ginny head-on. "What did he do?"

"I—well, plenty—he was treated like a bloody king, and just like all the other Slytherins, he tortured other students whenever the Carrows told him to—"

"Did he torture _you_?"

"No, but so what?" It was true; she had come under fire from other Slytherins—Crabbe, for one, and also Harper, who'd been ordered to practice the Cruciatus Curse on her in Amycus Carrow's Dark Arts class. "It's okay if he tortured other people, but not me?"

"No, Ginny, of course not." Hermione sighed. "I only wondered if that's why you feel so…hostile towards him."

"I feel _hostile_ towards him because it's Malfoy! And despite everything he did, he got off scot-free, him and his parents!"

"Let me ask you this." Hermione adjusted her bag over her shoulder. "Did you ever see Draco torture someone _without_ one of the Carrows forcing him to do it?"

Ginny opened her mouth to respond, then shut it. She couldn't, actually, think of any time she'd seen Malfoy use the Cruciatus Curse of his own accord, though Crabbe and Goyle both had, sometimes when he was around. Which, so far as she was concerned, was just as bad.

He hadn't _stopped_ them. And he had never refused the Carrows either, unlike Ginny, unlike Neville, unlike countless of other students who had refused to torture each other. Why couldn't Hermione understand that?

"Look, you have every right to hate Malfoy, Ginny," Hermione said, as they both took up again down the corridor. "All I'm saying is, don't—don't go looking for a fight with him."

"I don't go _looking_ for fights with anyone!" Ginny scoffed. And that was true. Even if, somehow, fights did seem to find her.

The fact was, Ginny had been involved in no less than four fights since the term started back in September, _but_ she hadn't started any of them, much less gone _looking_ for them. What was she supposed to have done, when she saw Vaisey belittling two Hufflepuff fourth years in the corridor? Professor Sinistra, who was the new Head of Gryffindor House, seemed to think that hexing Vaisey was not an appropriate response, but Ginny didn't agree.

And she _had_ punched a hulking Slytherin sixth year after the Gryffindor Quidditch trials, but he had been _heckling_ her all the way back to the changing rooms, and was she just supposed to put up with that sort of harassment? And as for Goyle, that time in the entrance hall before dinner—well, she maintained that he'd been about to take his wand out when he and Zabini were arguing with that group of Ravenclaws, even though Zabini claimed Goyle was only reaching for a handkerchief. A _handkerchief!_ As though she was supposed to believe that. So of course she'd hit Goyle with a Stunning Spell before he could curse anyone, and she'd earned a week of detention for that. Just for defending others.

She didn't go _looking_ for fights. But, though Voldemort might be dead and the Death Eaters ousted from the school, that didn't mean everything was all roses at Hogwarts. How could it be, when so many of the same people—the same students, the same Slytherins—who hadn't hesitated to side with the Carrows were still here, walking the halls as though nothing had changed?

The first Quidditch match of the year was that first weekend in November, and the Gryffindor team lost miserably. The only small piece of good about this, Ginny reflected sourly, as she changed out of her team robes after the match, was that they hadn't lost to Slytherin. Though Gryffindor usually played Slytherin in the first match, this year, they had played Hufflepuff. The change had been made by Professor McGonagall, and though no official explanation had been given, rumor had gotten around that the staff was worried about the tension between the two Houses, and had therefore decided to put that match off for a while.

Which, Ginny thought, was ridiculous. It wasn't like there _wouldn't_ be tension between the two Houses in three months' time, or six months' time, or in ten years, for that matter. There had _always_ been tension between Gryffindor and Slytherin. So long as Slytherin didn't pull any dirty tricks, she didn't see why they couldn't have their match. In fact, she was looking forward to trouncing them, especially since Harper was the new team captain.

Ginny was just stuffing her dirty Quidditch robes into her bag when the door _banged_ open behind her. She jumped, spinning around with her wand in hand, but it was only Demelza, one of the Chasers on the Gryffindor team. Ginny relaxed a little, but then she registered the look on Demelza's face. "What is it?"

"You better come quick, Gin." Demelza's dark eyebrows were drawn down over her face. "It's Vaisey. And Harper."

That was all the explanation Ginny needed. Still clutching her wand, she left her Quidditch bag behind and stormed outside, Demelza on her heels.

Just past the end of the Quidditch pitch, a small crowd had gathered around four people—Dean and Seamus, who stood facing off against Harper and Vaisey. Dean, who was also playing Chaser this year, was still in his Quidditch robes, and Seamus was red-faced as he exchanged scowls with Vaisey. No one had their wands out, but it was clear the Slytherins were spoiling for a fight.

"What's going on here?" Ginny demanded, pushing past a couple of Hufflepuff girls to get to the Slytherins. Harper turned at the sound of her voice, saw her wand in hand, and eyed it warily.

"Nothing's going on here, Weasley," Vaisey sneered. He was a tall boy with sleek, dark hair and chilling blue eyes. "Except you Gryffindors being sore losers, as usual. Especially the _losers_ part."

"Say that again," Seamus growled.

Vaisey turned back to him. "I'm sorry, was I not clear? I said you're a pack of _losers_ , Finnegan—"

"Leave off, Dustin," Harper muttered.

Ginny turned her glare on Harper. "What's the matter, Harper? Too much of a coward to face me on even footing?"

Harper returned Ginny's glare with a vicious one of his own. "I'll face you on even footing, Weasley. On the Quidditch pitch, next term. And my team will trounce yours just as easily as the Hufflepuffs did."

"Why wait?" Ginny shot back, raising her wand slightly. "Why not now?" In the back of her mind, she heard Hermione's voice— _Don't go looking for a fight_ —but she hadn't started this, had she, clearly Vaisey and Harper had—

Harper's dark face went a little ashen, but he didn't move. Vaisey did, though, and so did Seamus, the both of them thrusting their hands into their pockets for their wands—

"Now, now, what's going on here?"

Seamus and Vaisey both dropped their arms, and Ginny hastily stuffed her wand into her back pocket, just as Professor Slughorn ambled over from the stands, his vast paunch proceeding him. He'd lost a bit of weight during last year, Ginny had noticed, but not enough to make much difference.

"Nothing's going on, Professor." It was the same answer he'd given Ginny, only this time, Vaisey smiled his best suck-up smile and left off the snarky remark about Gryffindors being losers. "Just chatting about the match, is all."

"Yes, well, best we all move along." Slughorn spoke affably enough, but his broad face was a bit too knowing as he ran his gaze over Harper, Seamus, Dean, and lastly, Ginny. That knowing gaze lingered on Ginny for a moment, but then he turned away, practically ushering Vaisey and Harper off with him. "I hope your essays for my next class are coming along, boys, don't want to leave it too late, do we?"

Harper and Vaisey's response was lost to the distance as they disappeared up towards the castle, trailing Slughorn.

"What happened?" Ginny asked, turning to Dean and Seamus.

Dean shrugged, looking a bit uncomfortable. "Just the usual," Seamus griped. "Slytherins getting too big for their boots, of course."

Ginny shook her head. Around them, what was left of the crowd was beginning to disperse. "Well, after that _and_ that horrid match, I'm starving. Are you two coming?"

"Go on ahead, Gin," Dean told her. "I need to change."

Seamus elected to stay behind and wait for him, so Ginny and Demelza headed up to the castle with the last of the stragglers. Losing the match had left a hollow feeling in Ginny's chest—it was not a horrible loss; it had been a close game, and anyway, Hufflepuff was really good this year—but it was her first loss as Quidditch Captain, and that stung more than she'd thought it would.

She was so absorbed by these glum feelings, and by her dinner, that it wasn't until after she finished eating that she realized she'd left her Quidditch bag in the changing rooms. She looked around for Dean, wondering if he'd seen it, and hoping, maybe, that he'd brought it. But Parvati told her she'd seen him when she came down for dinner, that he'd gone straight to the common room, and that, no, she didn't remember him carrying any Quidditch bag except his own.

"I'll just have to get it myself, then," Ginny said, resigned. Zipping her jumper up over her shirt, she headed outside, down the castle's steps, and into the dark, chilly night.

The castle grounds were eerily silent, even though it was not that late. Ginny passed the lake on her right; it looked like black glass in the haze of twilight, reflecting the pale light of the moon that peeked out overhead. Further down the grounds, on her left, smoke was curling out from Hagrid's chimney, and she thought maybe, after she picked up her bag, she might stop by and see him.

As the Quidditch pitch loomed into view and she reached the changing rooms, she couldn't help but think of the confrontation with Harper and Vaisey earlier, and she flexed her hands into fists. Seeing Harper was like a punch in the gut—it always was. All she had to do was close her eyes and she was back in Carrow's class, under the Cruciatus Curse, and if Hermione only knew what that had been like, then she would have known why it didn't matter that Carrow told Harper to do it.

But Vaisey…Ginny would have liked nothing more than to punch Vaisey in his smug little face. He seemed to think he was king in Slytherin now, now that Malfoy was gone…only Malfoy was back now, and that didn't seem to have deterred him one bit.

Ginny frowned as she went into the changing rooms and shouldered her bag. She hadn't seen Malfoy at the match, although, she'd been a bit busy trying to get a hold of the Quaffle to pay attention to who was there and who wasn't. Still, it was odd, how under the radar Malfoy had been since he'd come back. Everyone was talking about him, but outside of Transfiguration and the occasional meal in the Great Hall, she hadn't seen him at all. He'd always been such a presence before, lording himself over everyone, always finding someone to jeer at or humiliate in the corridors between classes, but now that he was back, well…it was like he wasn't back at all.

Ginny couldn't say she minded. But it was odd.

She paused outside the changing rooms to pull her spare scarf out of her bag—Merlin, it was getting _cold_ —and had only just finished wrapping it around her neck when she heard a strangled cry.

She whirled around, staring into the black. "Who's there?" she said sharply. Her voice echoed into the night, but there was no response, no movement. Only silence. Snatching her wand out of her pocket, she ventured forward, inching towards the pitch. " _Lumos_ ," she whispered, and her wand came alight.

The pitch was empty; there was no one there. Ginny let out a long, low exhale. She tried to tell herself that perhaps she'd imagined the cry, but she knew she hadn't. She'd heard it, and it sounded like a person. A person afraid, or a person in pain.

She swept her wand to the left, and that was when she saw it. A shadow, a _moving_ shadow, beneath the raised stands. Without even thinking about the possible danger, Ginny darted forward, and as she got closer, she saw that it was _two_ shadows, two people, one in black school robes and the other in a dark hoodie. She slowed as she neared them, confused, trying to get a clear look at what they were doing. It wasn't until she reached the woodwork that she realized there was a _third_ person—on the ground between the other two, moaning in pain. As Ginny looked on in shock, the robed student aimed a kick at the person on the ground, who writhed, curling in on himself. The attacker snarled something, but Ginny wasn't close enough to hear what was said or recognize the voice.

"Oy!" she shouted, ducking beneath the woodwork. As she ran towards them, wand drawn, both attackers looked up, startled.

Then they scarpered.

"Hey! _Stop!_ " she shouted after them. The attacker in the hoodie was closer, slower, than the one in the robes, and Ginny aimed a Stunning Spell at his back. But whoever it was caught a glimpse of her over his shoulder, just before she threw the spell, and he slowed long enough to half-turn and cast a Shield Charm to deflect it, shouting, " _Protego!_ "

Ginny stumbled to a halt in her pursuit, lowering her wand. A wave of uncertainty swept over her. That voice…it almost sounded like…

A moan from behind her reminded her that there was someone here, in need of help. She tossed another glance after the assailants, but they had vanished into the darkness of the grounds. Turning away, she hurried back to the student on the ground. She could see that it was a boy, though he lay on his side, hunched in on himself.

"Are you all right?" Ginny asked, though judging by the hacking cough the boy was emitting, she thought it a pretty stupid question. Coming around in front of him, she said, "Can you—"

Then she froze. The boy's face was half-plastered with mud, and he wore a snug beanie over his head, concealing most of his hair. But now, standing before him, Ginny could see who he was.

It was Malfoy.

* * *

 **Kyla's Prompt #1**

 **Basic premise:** The war is over; Harry Potter has won. The successful turn of battle doesn't mean that their fight is over, more that the rest of their lives are just beginning. Emboldened by their successes, the people Harry loves begin to pull the frayed edges of themselves together. Alone, vilified, and afraid, Draco Malfoy doesn't think he can move on and there's a part of him that doesn't believe he deserves to. Young Ginny Weasley, who wears her scars like a proud flag, doesn't intend on having anything to do with Malloy at all, but a chance encounter changes things. For better or worse, she's finding her path-and the place were they can both belong.

 **Must haves:** Impulsive!Ginny. The kind of "grown up too fast" feel to be expected from teenagers who were involved in combat situations. The color green, the color red. References to another Slytherin/Gryffindor pairing, and a smattering of Luna Lovegood. Happy or hopeful ending.

 **No-no's:** Partner betrayal, infant/child death, non-con.

 **Rating range:** Any

 **Bonus points:** Make me laugh and cry within the same story. _If you take a good prompt and make it better._


	2. Chapter 2

CHAPTER TWO

Draco felt a cough tear itself from his throat, and his chest ached with it. His whole body ached with it, vibrating through his bruised rib cage and his throbbing wrist and his cold, muddy face. He didn't know who had attacked him—one of them had jumped him from behind and held him in a chokehold while the second one punched him in the face. After that, he had been in too much pain to care who it was, kicking him and beating him until he couldn't see straight. They hadn't let up, not for a second, only now, it seemed like it _had_ been several seconds since that last kick. Vaguely, he heard a shout—too far away to hear what it was—and then, only silence.

The next thing he heard was footsteps, squelching through the mud towards him. He should get up, he thought—try to run—but the thought of even getting to his feet was laughable.

He peeked his eyes open just as the footsteps stopped, and found himself peering at a pair of short, fur-lined boots. The sort of boots girls wore. That was odd. Not that a girl couldn't have jumped him, he supposed…

"Are you all right?" a girl's voice asked. A familiar voice. "Can you…"

The voice trailed off. Draco hissed in pain as he drew a deep breath in and uncurled enough to raise his head.

The Weasley girl stood there, towering over him. Ginny Weasley.

" _Malfoy?_ " She looked gobsmacked, staring down at him. Draco gawked up at her in turn.

"It…was you?" he managed to get out, still breathing shallow breaths. Breathing was very painful at the moment.

The Weasley girl crouched down so that her face was close to his, though she didn't touch him or make any move to help him. She didn't look so much concerned as wary. "What did you say?"

"You…" Draco grimaced "…jumped me?"

"What? Don't be stupid, of course not! I just chased off the two that were beating you!"

Oh. That made more sense. Well, he was not sure why any Weasley would come to his aid, but then, it wouldn't be the first time. And besides, she was a bloody Gryffindor. She just couldn't help it, he supposed.

Draco groaned and managed to roll onto his back. He sucked in another careful breath. There was mud all over his face, and it was sludgy and cold. He tried to wipe it off with his hand, but the moment he moved his arm, another shooting pain lanced through his wrist.

"That looks broken," Weasley told him, very clinically. She still didn't sound concerned, and she still didn't move to help him. Draco was a little annoyed about this, but then he remembered her face when she'd run into him the other day, outside of the Transfiguration classroom. He remembered how all the color had drained from her when she'd seen him, he remembered the look that had come into her eyes, so hostile…no, more than hostile.

In that moment, he'd known that she hated him.

So maybe asking her to help him wasn't such a good idea. After all, he was pretty sure he deserved her hatred.

"What did you do, anyway?" she asked him.

"Wh-what?"

"What did you do? Why did they attack you?"

A surge of indignation rose in Draco, completely at odds with the thought he'd just had about deserving her hatred. "I didn't _do_ anything." He raised his other arm to wipe his face, but that hand was just as mud-caked, and all he really did was move the mud around.

"So you expect me to believe that two people jumped you for no reason?"

Well, they probably _had_ reason, or at least, they thought they did, Draco reflected. But— "I wasn't doing anything, all right?" Another raspy cough escaped his lips, and his ribcage burned with pain. He lifted his arm further, trying to get at his face with his sleeve. "I was only—walking—going back to the castle—"

"Oh, stop that, Malfoy. Here." Draco blinked through the mud, and when he lifted his arm from his face, he saw Weasley unwinding the scarf from around her neck. She thrust it at him. "Use this."

Draco was surprised, but he didn't hesitate to take the scarf. He winced as he dabbed it at his face. His jaw felt tender and his lip was swelling up.

"Can you stand?" she asked briskly.

That was a good question. Tucking her scarf inside his coat, he rolled onto his left—onto the arm that wasn't broken—and tried to push himself into a seated position. He grit his teeth against another moan—which he did not quite manage to suppress, resulting in a pitiful, mewling sound escaping him—but he had done it. Well, he wasn't standing, but he was sitting. That was an improvement.

He looked at Weasley. He could see her better now that he was upright and there wasn't so much mud covering his face. Her freckled cheeks were flushed from the cold, her hair still bound in the same braid she'd worn during the match. He had watched the match by himself from beneath the stands, and waited until everyone had gone before making his way back. Which now seemed quite stupid, as it had left him alone and vulnerable to the two who had attacked him.

Of course, that begged the question whether anyone would have stopped them, even if they'd jumped him in front of everyone else. He supposed a teacher would have put a stop to it, out of principle, if nothing else.

One thing was for sure—no one from his House would have helped him. Probably not even Goyle. The thought hurt more than it should have.

Weasley was staring at him, her brow wrinkled. Then, abruptly, her face cleared and she said, all business-like, "Well, come on, then. You'd better get to the hospital wing."

Another surprise. Though she hadn't said she'd _help_ him get to the hospital wing. But when he shifted all his weight onto his left arm to push himself up, she ducked around and got beneath his arm, helping him to stand. It was a good thing too, because as soon as he stood, a wave of dizziness swept over him.

"Careful, Malfoy," Weasley muttered, staggering a little, as though he'd nearly fainted on purpose. "If you pass out, I'm not levitating you to the hospital wing. I'm just not."

"Good to know," he mumbled. It was certainly incentive to hang onto his consciousness with every pained step he took.

For a long while, neither of them said anything, as they slowly wound their way back to the castle. It was a long way, and Draco needed most of his attention to focus on not passing out. But as they left the pitch behind and ventured into the dark, Draco bit his cheek and said, "Did you…see them? Who they were?"

"I—no." Weasley sounded rattled. "No. I didn't."

Draco thought there was something a little too hasty about her answer.

An hour later, he was in the hospital wing, mercifully if not comfortably tucked into a bed, with Madam Pompfrey fussing over him. She'd mended his wrist at once, and his bruised ribs too, though she said he'd still have some pain for a day or two.

Weasley was still there, too. She stood some ways away, speaking to Professor Sinistra and Professor Slughorn about what had happened. Professor Slughorn actually seemed concerned, which Draco thought was decent of him, although the man hadn't actually talked to _him_ at all.

"But you didn't see who these attackers were?" Professor Sinistra asked Ginny. She was a small woman, dainty even, with jet black hair that was lined with gray. Small though she was, she could be very stern. An apt replacement for McGonagall as Head of Gryffindor.

"No…no, I'm sorry." Ginny shook her head. "It was too dark, and…I just couldn't tell."

Professor Sinistra left shortly after that, and so did Slughorn, once he'd had a quick word with Madam Pompfrey. Draco sipped carefully at a glass of water, watching Weasley out of the corner of his eye. She was pulling her jumper on, and she didn't look at him once as she zipped it up and turned to go. Draco let her take a step towards the door before he said, "Weasley."

She stopped dead. It seemed a long time before she turned around, though it was probably only a second or two. "What, Malfoy?" she asked wearily, tucking her hands into her pockets.

Draco took another sip of water. "You're not a very good liar."

"Excuse me?" She stamped over to him in an instant, and Draco reflected, with some humor, how easy it was to provoke her.

"You hesitate too much," Draco said into his glass. "I suppose it's that Gryffindor nobility. Some part of you just doesn't feel right being dishonest, even if it is to protect one of your own."

"What are you talking about, Malfoy?"

Draco dipped his head in a nod towards the door, through which both professors had left. "I'm talking about what you told them. That you didn't recognize the people who attacked me. That's not quite true, is it?"

"It was _dark_ , Malfoy, I couldn't see anything—"

"See?" Draco said, and he even managed a pleasant tone. "Right there? You dropped your eyes when you said it. You wouldn't look at me."

Ginny glared. She took another step forward, her knees knocking against the side of his bed, and then she leaned forward, looking him right in the eye. "It was dark. I couldn't see anything."

Draco felt his pleasant expression slip. It was too disconcerting, her close proximity, and he sank back a little. "So maybe you heard something, then. Something they said."

Her venomous expression wavered. That was all the confirmation he needed.

Weasley blew out an irritated breath, leaning back. "I thought I heard…but I can't be sure, Malfoy. I really don't know, all right? I just…it couldn't have been, anyway—"

"Why? Because it was a Gryffindor?" Draco felt his ire rising, though he tried to conceal it from her. "And that's not something a brave, noble _Gryffindor_ would do, jumping someone from behind, two on one?"

Weasley's eyes narrowed. "It does sound more like something a Slytherin would do, doesn't it?"

"Merlin." Draco set his water glass aside, grimacing at the twinge of pain in his middle. "It's almost funny, Weasley. Ironic, even."

"What is?"

"How prejudiced you are."

"What!" Weasley gaped at him. " _You're_ calling _me_ prejudiced? You, a—a _Death Eater_ —"

"Former Death Eater," he corrected her, ignoring the wash of guilt that flooded through him.

"You, who sided with Voldemort against Muggles and Muggleborns, _you_ , who's always hated me and my family for blood traitors—"

"Yes, my prejudices are well-established, Weasley, thank you," he said waspishly. "But we weren't talking about me, we were talking about you."

Weasley was stone-faced. "I am not prejudiced."

"You can't credit that someone outside of Slytherin would have attacked me, much less someone from your own House." Draco clasped his hands together in his lap. It was amusing, provoking her, but about this, he was dead serious. "And though no one in my House is very fond of me right now, none of them _hate_ me. None of them would have attacked me."

"Yes, I'd noticed you don't quite occupy the grand place you used to, in your House. Vaisey seems to think he's in charge now."

"Vaisey's a punk," Draco said bitterly. "I don't care what he thinks." That was true. Draco didn't miss being "in charge," he didn't miss the stature he used to command in Slytherin House. He barely remembered what that felt like, or why it had ever been so important. What he was missed was…someone, _anyone_ , to talk to. He missed Crabbe, even though he'd nearly gotten Draco killed. He missed Goyle. He even missed Zabini, annoying sod that he was.

Maybe that was why he was talking to Weasley. God, that was low, even for him.

"Anyway, you're missing the point," he told her. "Or avoiding it, more like. You're a blind fool if you don't think a Ravenclaw or a Hufflepuff or yes, even a _Gryffindor_ would attack me, Weasley."

"Well, you've certainly given them plenty of reason to, Malfoy!" she burst out. Fury shone in her eyes. "Haven't you?"

Another wave of guilt swooped through him, stronger this time, harder to ignore. He felt his hands began to shake, and he clutched them together as tight as he could. "I suppose I have."

Weasley goggled at him.

"But not _every_ Slytherin is to blame for what happened last year," he added, and he didn't bother to hide his ire now. "And yet, that hasn't stopped every single person in Slytherin House from being targeted by the rest of you."

"What?" Ginny spluttered. "No one is _targeting_ Slytherins. That's ridiculous."

"What's ridiculous is that you haven't seen it, Weasley." Draco leaned his head back against his pillow and closed his eyes. He was suddenly very, very tired, and he desperately wanted that dreamless sleep potion he'd turned down from Pompfrey a little while ago. "Like I said. A blind fool."

* * *

Draco remained in the hospital wing for another day, and by Monday he was back in classes, and more or less back to his full strength. His ribs still ached a little, especially if he coughed or laughed, but since he didn't have much to laugh at these days, that wasn't really a problem.

It was a little nervous, going back to class Monday morning, walking the corridors with all the other students, knowing two of them had attacked him. Still, he wasn't as frightened by the idea as he would have been once. Draco had never been especially brave, or in fact, brave at all, but after everything that had happened the last two years, it was just hard to be afraid of a couple of students, even after the beating they had given him. There was a time when Draco had feared physical pain, probably more than almost anything else, but he had learned that there were things far worse.

Taking a beating seemed a meager fear, after being forced to torture so many others. And Draco wasn't about to let anyone else do that to him ever again.

His last class on Monday was Ancient Runes, up on the second floor of the castle. It was a small class, made up mostly of Ravenclaws and, of course, Granger, who was in all the same classes Draco was, and probably more besides. Still, there were a handful of Slytherins as well—Tracey Davis and Cole Harper, neither of whom Draco was very friendly with, and also, Blaise Zabini.

Draco had never really been friends with Blaise either, though they had sometimes run in the same circles, given that they'd always shared a dormitory and most of their classes. Draco had just never really liked Blaise. He never said much, and yet Draco had always had the sense that Blaise was laughing at him. As though Blaise was so much better than he was. He'd never gotten better marks than Draco, he didn't play Quidditch or do anything to distinguish himself, and his family, though enormously wealthy, was not a name that earned a lot of respect in most circles. Really, all Blaise had going for him was that he was ridiculously good-looking, and the fact that he seemed content with that annoyed Draco to no end.

They had never really been friends. And everyone in Slytherin House seemed to be doing their best to ignore Draco these days, which was why he was surprised, after Ancient Runes, to find Blaise walking back to the dungeons with him.

He was not precisely walking _with_ him. It was more that they were going in the same direction, and walking at relatively the same pace. Judging by the startled look Blaise gave him as they rounded a corner, he'd probably been lost in thought and hadn't even realized they'd been walking together. Blaise quickly broke eye contact with him, and Draco half-expected him to pick up his pace, or maybe even pull some stupid trick, like stop to "tie his shoelace." But Blaise did neither of those things. He just kept walking, keeping pace with Draco, as they reached a stairwell and started down towards the ground floor.

Draco supposed Blaise was too cool—or thought he was too cool—to let on that he didn't want to walk with Draco.

But then Zabini surprised him all the more by actually speaking.

"What are you doing back here, Malfoy? At school, I mean."

Draco stared at him dumbly for a moment, too staggered that Blaise had spoken to him to reply. Then he processed what he'd said, and his defenses flew up. "I have as much right to be back here as you do, Zabini."

"So defensive." Blaise's eyes glittered with amusement. "Did I say you shouldn't be here? I just asked why."

"Well, why're you here? You didn't have to come back, so far as I can tell."

"Some of us have to work for a living, Draco," Blaise said dryly. "We can't all be independently wealthy and lounge around a manor all our lives. And one typically needs N.E.W.T.s to get a job."

Draco snorted. "No, I suppose we _can't_ all be independently wealthy, but you surely can. Your mother is probably wealthier than my family, by now."

"I doubt that," Blaise demurred, "and anyway, that's my mother, Malfoy. She doesn't want me living off her for the rest of my life, and frankly, nor do I."

Draco found that hard to believe. He was pretty sure Blaise had a brother who had graduated from Hogwarts several years ago and didn't do anything at all. But he put that aside for now. If Blaise wanted to pretend he needed or wanted a job, Draco could play along. "All right, then. So you're back taking Ancient Runes and Potions and…what else? Or are those the only classes you're taking?" They were the only two they had together.

"I'm taking Charms," Blaise said lightly.

"Charms." Draco stared at Blaise as they rounded the stairwell landing. "Ancient Runes, Potions, and Charms. Exactly what kind of job are you planning to get with those N.E.W.T.s?"

"Who knows? Maybe I'll be a Curse Breaker."

"Except you're not taking Defense Against the Dark Arts," Draco pointed out, "which I think is fairly important if you want to be a Curse Breaker. And I don't remember you being particularly good at that class either, so it's not like you could take your N.E.W.T. without another year of it."

"Draco, I had no idea you paid such close attention to my class performance," Blaise said, but there was a thin layer of malice beneath his voice now, belying his calm demeanor. "And you never answered my question. What are _you_ doing back here? Since we both know you don'tneed a job."

"I still have to take my N.E.W.T.s," Draco said quietly. "It's not like I can just drop out of school." _That_ was a matter of status, which Blaise knew very well.

"And you couldn't take them without more schooling? Only, I would think you could manage a sufficient amount of them without another year."

He wasn't wrong, though nor was he probably as right as he thought. Last year hadn't exactly been conducive to learning, not even for Draco—maybe even _especially_ for Draco, though most of the other students would never believe that. Part of that was his fault. He had done everything he could last year to stay on top, so to speak, to continue as he always had, throwing his weight around and looking down on everyone else. It had made things easier, to go on as though nothing had changed at Hogwarts, even though everything had changed—even though the school corridors were so much like the same terror he faced at home, with Death Eaters and the Dark Lord in and out of the manor all the time.

But though outwardly, Draco had probably seemed unruffled by the changes in the school, inwardly, he had been so often terrified and distressed that, frankly, it was a miracle he'd managed to learn anything.

None of which was the real reason he was back at Hogwarts. He probably _could_ have taken his N.E.W.T.s and scraped by with enough to please his parents. But he didn't feel like divulging one of the most vulnerable parts of himself to Zabini, so he was rather ridiculously overwhelmed with relief when, as they reached the bottom of the staircase, Draco spotted Ginny Weasley coming in from outside with a slew of other students.

Before he had thought about what he was doing, he raised an arm and called, "Weasley!" And he waved. At Weasley.

Weasley looked over at him. Judging by the look on her face, she rather thought he had gone mad, and judging by the look Blaise shot him, he thought the same thing. As the other students flowed in through the open doors and dispersed up the staircases or into the Great Hall, Weasley hesitated, glancing at the girl beside her—the Lovegood girl. Lovegood shrugged at Weasley, with the same vacant expression she always wore, and then, half-resigned and half-suspicious Ginny trudged over to him, with Lovegood in tow.

"What do you want, Malfoy?" Ginny demanded. "I see Madam Pompfrey managed to heal all your bruises."

Draco cleared his throat. "Yes, my face is just as handsome as ever." Now why had he said _that?_

Weasley scowled. "I wouldn't go _that_ far. Now what do you want?"

He took a step away from the staircase, back towards the passage down to the dungeons. "I still have your scarf," he told her. "If you come with me, I can give it back to you." He jerked his head towards the way to their common room.

Now Weasley looked more suspicious than ever. "Why don't you just bring it to dinner and give it to me then?"

"Yeah, right," Draco scoffed, "like I'm just going to walk up to the Gryffindor table in the middle of the Great Hall. I don't actually want to get jumped again, Weasley."

Weasley rolled her eyes. "No one is going to _jump_ you in the middle of dinner—"

"Will you just come with me?" Draco demanded. He was not sure why he was being so insistent about this; only that, now that she was arguing with him about it, he didn't want to back down. "It will only take a minute."

Once again, Weasley exchanged a look with Lovegood, who was still wearing that dotty smile. "I'll come with you, Ginny," she said.

"Thanks, Luna," Ginny said sourly. "Fine, Malfoy. Lead the way."

Blaise—who, for some inexplicable reason, had not moved on during this exchange—arched an eyebrow at Draco as they headed down the stairwell to the dungeons. "I had no idea you and Weasley were so chummy."

"We're not," Weasley said curtly, half a step behind them.

"And yet you lent him your scarf," Blaise said.

" _Lent_ is a strong way of putting it," Weasley grumbled, even though, Draco reflected, that was exactly what she had done. It wasn't as though he'd taken it from her against her will.

They walked in silence for a couple of minutes, the four of them traversing the dim, winding corridors towards the Slytherin common room. Then Lovegood said, very pleasantly, "I've never seen the Slytherin common room before. Is it as dark as all the rest of this is?"

"Yes," said Blaise.

"You're not going to see it now," Draco said, his old House loyalties flaring up by rote. "No one outside Slytherin House has ever been in our common room, not in seven hundred years."

Weasley snorted a laugh at that.

Draco eyed her sidelong. "Something funny, Weasley?"

"No." Weasley widened her eyes innocently. "Not at all."

Draco frowned. "You wouldn't let anyone into _your_ common rooms, surely."

"No," Weasley admitted, "but—"

"I did let Harry into the Ravenclaw common room last year," Lovegood said, perfectly serene, "but then, that was when the battle against Voldemort was going on, so they were rather extraordinary circumstances."

Draco and Blaise exchanged quick, uncomfortable glances.

"It's just," Weasley said, breaking through the tension—perhaps not even noticing it— "no outsider has been in your common room for seven hundred _years?_ Doesn't that seem a bit unlikely?"

"It's true," Draco said stoutly.

"Supposedly," Blaise added.

Draco glowered.

"What?" Blaise asked, as they rounded the final corner to their common room. "It _does_ seem a bit unlikely, especially since—" He broke off short, staring up ahead.

Draco followed his gaze, and when he did, he stuttered to a halt in the middle of the corridor, his annoyance evaporating. Lovegood bumped right into him from behind, but Draco barely noticed.

"What…?" Weasley slowed to a stop. "Is that your common room?"

It _was_ the common room. Exposed, for everyone to see. The stretch of wall that usually concealed it was pulled back, and stuck open, it seemed. There was something on the wall beside it—something…red…it looked like, like red paint or maybe…

Weasley took her wand out at once. She ventured around Blaise and started down the corridor, approaching the open common room door. Taking out her own wand, Lovegood followed and Draco, reluctantly, did the same. Blaise stayed where he was.

Weasley came to a halt right in front of the open door. Draco joined her a moment later, and what he saw made his stomach sink.

The common room had been trashed. All the armchairs were overturned, the tables too; one of them had even been blasted to bits. Graffiti was inked all over the walls, foul language and insults, from what Draco could see. Rubbish littered the floor, some of it just parchment, possibly from their own rubbish bins, but there was other refuse as well, rotten food and worse.

"Well," said Blaise, and Draco jumped; he had not realized the other Slytherin had come to join them, "it looks like someone did get into the common room after all."

"Is that the lake?" Lovegood pointed through the windows in the back wall. "That's quite pretty, isn't it?"

Draco did not bother to respond to this rather inane comment, and neither did Weasley. In fact, Weasley looked quite pale. She was no longer gazing into the common room, but at the wall beside the entrance. Draco looked too.

There, on the wall, someone had left a large message in dripping red paint. Definitely paint, he noted with relief, not blood. When he read the message though, he was far from comforted.

It read "GO HOME, SLYTHERINS."

Grimly, Draco looked at Weasley. "Still think the Slytherins aren't being targeted, Weasley?"

* * *

The dead quiet at dinner in the Great Hall that night spoke clearly to the tension and dread overlaying the castle. Professor McGonagall addressed all the students, condemning the actions of whoever it was that broke into the Slytherin common room, but, Draco thought bitterly, he wasn't sure how effective those words were coming from her, since she was a former Gryffindor and had chucked all the Slytherins out during the battle at the school less than six months ago.

The Slytherins were all to sleep in the Great Hall that night, while the common room was cleared and cleaned and, Draco suspected, checked for any sabotaging jinxes left behind. Puffy, green sleeping bags were conjured for them all. Draco thought the sight should have been comforting, that sea of Slytherin green, but he couldn't help but remember the purple sleeping bags Dumbledore had conjured in third year, when Sirius Black had broken into the castle—purple, a neutral color, because the whole student body had been under attack that day. Not just the Slytherins.

Though it was barely eight o'clock, most of the Slytherins were already in the Great Hall, not sleeping, but doing homework and talking in hushed, worried whispers. Draco didn't want to hang around until it was time for bed, so he decided to see if they would let him into the Slytherin common room, so he could fetch his half-finished Potions essay and work on it in the library. The Slytherin prefects and a couple of teachers were "on watch" around the Great Hall, but no one tried to stop him when he left and started down the stairwell to the dungeons.

When he reached the bottom of the stairwell, however, he found someone blocking his way—not intentionally, and it was not a teacher or a prefect. Instead, he found Ginny Weasley, of all people, sitting on the bottom step. Her back was to him, and she sat hunched over, but her red hair was unmistakable. When his foot came down on the stair behind her, she jumped up, her hand going into her robe—presumably for her wand. She was white-faced—just like she had been earlier, when they'd found the common room broken into—and for some reason, the sight irritated Draco. After all, it was not _her_ common room that had been broken into, it was not _her_ privacy and safety that had been violated.

"Merlin," she gasped when she saw him. "You scared me."

"What are you doing down here?" he demanded, his tone more accusing than he meant it to be.

"None of your business." She was still a little wild around the eyes, and Draco could not think why. "What are _you_ doing down here?"

Draco gestured impatiently. "That is _my_ common room down that way—"

"You can't get in, or did you forget?"

"I left something—"

"Well, they're not letting anyone in, not even Slytherins, I was just there."

"Why?" Draco demanded for the second time.

Ginny scowled. "I told you. None of your business."

"Maybe it _is_ my business, Weasley," he shot back. He was trying not to do this. He reminded himself that he was trying not to do this, stirring things up with anyone, especially a Weasley, especially one of Potter's lot. But he wasn't picking on her because she was poor or even a blood traitor; he was angry, because _they_ had been targeted, and she was still acting like it was somehow their own fault. Draco could admit that he might have had it coming, but that didn't mean that all of Slytherin House did. "After all, _some_ one broke into our common room this afternoon, and here you are, for no reason at all—"

Ginny let out a disbelieving laugh. "Are you accusing _me_ of breaking into your common room? I was in Herbology before I met up with you in the entrance hall, Malfoy—"

"And yet, here you are, acting very jumpy, for some reason—"

"Like you said, _someone_ broke into your common room!" she snapped, and her voice was a little tinnier than usual. "So if I seem _jumpy_ , I should think it obvious why!"

"Obvious? Because you're so concerned for us Slytherins? Or, no—" Draco came down the last step, putting him on even footing with Weasley, and also putting him in closer proximity to her. "What, are you worried _your_ common room is going to be next? Because I doubt that will happen, Weasley. _Go home, Slytherins_ , that's a pretty specific message, don't you think?"

Weasley looked paler than ever. "I know what it said, Malfoy."

"Good, I'm glad you remember." He took another step towards her. "So maybe, then, you want to explain what you're doing down here."

She had her wand out and pointed at him in a flash. "Stay away from me, Malfoy."

Draco froze. And it was not just from fear for himself, fear of what she might do to him. It was also because he realized what he was doing, exactly what he _didn't_ want to do. Threaten and bully and intimidate. He took a step back, but the rush of shame that tore through him was too much to bear, too unwieldy, and he didn't want it, so he said, "What is wrong with you, Weasley? The war is _over_ , didn't anyone tell you?"

" _Over?_ " Her eyes flashed, and Draco knew at once that he'd said the wrong thing. Not just _a_ wrong thing, but _the_ wrong thing. "Over? Is that what you think? The war's not _over_ , Malfoy, it can't be _over_ , not for me, not for the rest of us—" She was trembling from head to toe, and though she'd lowered her wand, she still clutched it tightly enough that Draco was worried. And not just worried for himself.

"Maybe it's over for _you_ ," she pushed on, relentless, like a runaway train barreling down the tracks, uncontrolled and unstable. "You and your family, you just name some names, get Harry to vouch for you, and everything's back to normal, isn't it? You can just go on living your life, like nothing's changed—"

" _Everything_ has changed, Weasley." He was almost afraid to speak up beneath her onslaught, but this point hit home so acutely, he couldn't stay silent. "Merlin, why do you think I'm _here?_ Why do you think I came _back?_ "

"I don't care, Malfoy!" She came at him then, not with her wand but with her fists, and Draco was too startled to do anything as she shoved him, _hard_ , in the chest, so hard that he stumbled against the stairs. "I don't care why you're back, I don't give a damn about what you think you've suffered, you don't know _anything_ —" Now she hit him, pounding a fist against his chest, and it was such a feeble hit, such a useless gesture. "You haven't lost anyone, you haven't been tortured, you haven't watched your friends die, your brother isn't _dead_ —"

 _That's not true_ , he wanted to say, thinking of Vincent with a twinge of regret, but he couldn't say anything now, not while her eyes were gleaming with angry, unshed tears, not while she was yelling at him in a voice so raw—

"So don't tell me it's over," she seethed. "Nothing is over. Don't you get it? _I'm still fighting_. I can't stop."

Her voice really broke on that last word, and she gulped in a breath, as though she had spent it all, every bit of breath in her lungs. It was silent then, so silent, the only sound that of Weasley's shallow breaths.

Draco felt as though something had lodged in his throat. When he spoke—when he dared to speak—his voice was as wrecked as hers, as though he had been the one screaming for the past five minutes. "But you don't have to fight _us_ ," he said, and he didn't mean to sound so pleading, so desperate. He gestured in the direction of the common room. " _We're_ not the enemy, I'm not—you don't have to fight me, Weasley."

"So, what, then? We're all in this together?" Weasley's voice rose with incredulity. "Why? Because you have no other option now? But none of you were there before, where—where was Slytherin House when we were battling Voldemort in this very school? Where were the Slytherins when the Carrows were stalking these halls, where were _you_ , when the rest of us were being tortured?" The helpless note in her voice hardened into something much darker, much nastier. "Standing and watching, is where you were. That's all you ever did."

That was a slap in the face. Not because it was unfair, not because it was unearned—no, the opposite. Because as soon as she said it, he could see himself, standing in an upstairs corridor, watching Crabbe use the Cruciatus Curse on her and doing nothing to stop him, watching Amycus Carrow use the Cruciatus Curse on her and doing nothing—

He had never been ordered to torture her himself, but he had never stepped in to stop it, either. And if he had been asked…?

There really was no question what he would have done.

She shook her head at his silence, and suddenly, Draco couldn't stand to be under her gaze any longer. The loathing that filled him—loathing for himself—was so strong he thought he was going to be sick, and he wondered how he lived with it, every day, lurking in the back of his mind. He turned away from her, lurching up the stairs, up and up and up until he reached the entrance hall, and there was no one there, though Draco did not know what he would have done if there was, because his legs would not hold him anymore, and he crouched down on the floor, at the top of the stairs, and put his head in his hands and tried not to retch.


	3. Chapter 3

CHAPTER THREE

It was three days after the Slytherin common room had been defaced, and Ginny was down in the dungeons again, staring at the wall.

The paint was gone now, the red paint that had scrawled the crude message, _"GO HOME, SLYTHERINS."_ There was not a smidge of it left, staining the stone walls. In fact, Ginny was not even sure she was in the right place, standing opposite the right expanse of wall that concealed the entry into the common room. She had never been down here until a few days ago, and the walled corridors all looked the same to her. She had the right corridor, she thought, but where exactly the door was, she didn't know.

She couldn't suppress a shudder as she turned away. Seeing it the other night—not the common room, but the wall outside it, the stone wall, graffitied with that dripping, red message—had taken her right back to her first year at Hogwarts. To the Chamber of Secrets, to the first attack after the Halloween feast, finding Filch's cat hanging from the wall and that other, different message scrawled in red over her—the message that Ginny herself had written, even if she had no memory of doing it. To this day.

She knew that was in the past now. Tom Riddle was gone; he was not possessing her or anyone else, and even if he was, he would hardly write threatening messages to the Slytherins. It was not as though she feared she had done it, mucked up the common room without remembering it. That was ridiculous.

But seeing it upset her all the same. And she could not shake it.

"I'm telling you, I can't do it, not anymore—!"

" _Would_ you keep it down, everyone in the castle can hear you! Look—come this way—"

Ginny frowned, perking up at the sound of raised voices down the corridor. She couldn't see anyone, as she peered into the gloom, but this corridor wound round and round, so it was possible whoever was speaking was just out of sight. Ginny picked up her pace, half-trotting down the corridor, and just when she thought she must've missed the speakers, she caught a flash of blond hair vanishing into a small alcove off the main corridor.

Ginny slowed just enough to make sure her feet didn't make a sound as she approached the alcove. Two large pillars blocked it off from the main corridor, so she hurried up behind one, pressing her back into the smooth, curving surface as she listened to the hushed conversation just a few feet away. It should have been none of her business, she supposed, but those few words sounded odd— _"I can't do it, not anymore"_ —and after all, a common room had just been attacked down the hall from here…

"—know that things have a been a bit nerve-wracking lately," a girl was saying. Ginny didn't recognize the voice at all.

"A bit!" came another girl's voice. "A bit! The common room was broken into, for Merlin's sake, which is why we're having this conversation out here and not in there! There's no telling _who_ can get in. We're not safe, Daphne!"

Ginny edged her head out from behind the pillar, craning her neck to get a glimpse of the two girls. One of them was just out of sight, but the other Ginny recognized—Millicent Bulstrode. She was in Hermione's year, one of the "old" seventh years in Slytherins who had returned.

"Look, I know, all right?" This was not Bulstrode speaking, but the other girl, and though Ginny couldn't see her, she thought she must also be from Hermione's year, another Slytherin—Ginny was pretty sure one of them had a name like Daphne…what was it…Greengrass, that was it. Daphne Greengrass. "But we can't just _leave_ school."

"Speak for yourself," Bulstrode said gruffly. "I can scrape by a few N.E.W.T.s with what I've got, that's all I need. My dad's got a job lined up for me anyway—"

"So you're just going to give in?" Daphne sounded incredulous. "To whoever broke into the common room and wrote that message? "Go home, Slytherins," that's what it said, and you're just going to do it? Where's your House pride?"

"I'd rather be alive than proud, Daphne."

"Okay, yes, but—" Daphne sighed. "Look, go, if you want, I guess. But I can't. I'm staying."

"Why?" Bulstrode argued. "I don't understand why finishing out the year is so important to you. You convinced me to come back, and I agreed, even though I didn't want to. You can probably scrape through with more N.E.W.T.s than me, that's for sure, so why stay?"

There was a long silence. Ginny resisted the urge to shift her weight as she waited for an answer, an answer she was eager to know herself. Then, finally, Daphne said—

"Because of my sister, all right?" Her voice was so low Ginny almost couldn't hear her. "Astoria didn't want to come back without me. I mean, after last year and all—and she just wanted me to come back, and I said I would. And it's not like _she_ can leave, she's got to take O.W.L.s this year, properly, I mean, so—so that's it. That's why I can't leave."

Ginny swallowed, pressing her hands back into the pillar. She was not sure what she had expected to hear—that Daphne had returned for some nefarious Slytherin plot, she supposed—but she certainly hadn't expected this. This…well, this very normal, understandable reason.

"So, I guess, go, if you want." Daphne's voice was louder now, and surer. "I can't stop you. But if you go, what're Davis and I going to do without you?"

"You had to go and bring Davis into it," Bulstrode grumbled. "Now you're playing dirty."

"Well, I know you don't care about me, but you don't want to leave her behind, do you?"

"Oh, fine, shut up, already," Bulstrode groused. "I'll stay, all right? But if anything else happens, Daphne, I swear—"

"I know, I get it." Daphne laughed, and the pealing sound echoed into the alcove, startling Ginny. "Oh, I'm just glad you're staying. Look, the year'll be over before we know it, all right? It's already almost Christmas hols, only a few weeks away—"

"A good _month_ away, still—"

"Oh, Millie, why do you have to be so negative about _everything…_ "

Ginny inched around the pillar as the girls emerged from the alcove, their voices disappearing down the corridor. She waited for several seconds before peeking her head out from behind the pillar to make sure they were well and truly gone. The corridor stretched before her, dim and empty. Letting out a long exhale, Ginny sagged in relief.

"Hullo, Ginny."

"Merlin!" Ginny jumped a foot in the air, looking around. "Luna!"

"I didn't mean to scare you," Luna said serenely.

"You didn't—I mean—" Ginny gulped a new breath of air. "I'm fine. Sorry, Luna." She tucked her hair behind her ear. "What're you doing down here?"

"I left my jumper in Slughorn's classroom this morning," Luna said. "It got so hot in there working on the Calming Draughts, which is odd, when you think about it…what are you doing down here?"

Ginny bit the inside of her cheek. Luna was one of her best friends, but she wasn't sure if she wanted to confide in anyone about how she'd felt when they found the common room trashed, and that message on the wall…and anyway, her head was full of other things now. Like the conversation she'd just overheard, between two Slytherin girls, two completely normal teenage girls who were just worried about their own safety.

She had not thought much about how the Slytherins must feel, having their common broken into and defaced. If she was honest with herself, she had tried _not_ to think about it, and besides, she'd been too focused on her own feelings, thinking about the Chamber of Secrets…but the two were not really connected, were they, what had happened back then and what was happening now…or maybe they were, in ways Ginny didn't want to admit…

"Luna," Ginny said slowly, "do you think I'm…prejudiced?"

Luna blinked owlishly at her. "Against the Slytherins, you mean?"

Ginny nodded. Her throat felt tight, as though some part of her didn't want to get the words out. "It's just…" She couldn't shake seeing that message, how it reminded her of first year, but maybe it was really Malfoy she couldn't shake. What he'd said to her in the hospital wing. That she couldn't fathom a Gryffindor might do something so underhanded. That she couldn't fathom that, maybe, the Slytherins had been wronged.

It wasn't like she believed all Slytherins were evil. But…neither did she really think of them as…well, as people like she had just seen in Bulstrode and Daphne Greengrass, two people who were just scared and concerned about their family and friends.

"I don't know about being prejudiced," Luna said, "but I think you're very angry."

Ginny realized she was fidgeting with her fingers and forced herself to stop. "Angry?" She couldn't deny that. Especially not after the way she'd gone off on Malfoy a few nights ago.

"Yes," said Luna. "And that's perfectly understandable, after everything you've been through. But I don't think it's the Slytherins you're really mad at. They're not really to blame for Voldemort or the Death Eaters, are they?"

Ginny felt like there was a knot in her chest. She could hear Malfoy in the back of her head. _You don't have to fight_ us. _We're not the enemy._ But who else was there left to fight?

"Come on," Ginny heard herself say, her mind working furiously through an idea—one that frightened her a little. But when had she ever backed down from something just because it was frightening? "Let's get to dinner. I'm starving."

Hermione and Parvati sat on her left at dinner, their conversation a muddle of what might come up on their Herbology exam and what new fashion of robes had been featured in _Witch Weekly_. Conversations between Hermione and Parvati were often like this, yet somehow they managed—since Parvati had lost her best friend and Hermione's friends had not come back to school. On Ginny's right, Demelza, Dean, Seamus, and Ritchie Cootes talked Quidditch, discussing which teams in the league might be best next year. Normally, Ginny would have participated in this kind of talk, but she was only half-listening as she scarfed down her shepherd's pie, her eyes glued to the entrance of the hall. She was just beginning to think that Malfoy was not going to turn up for dinner when he finally appeared in the doorway, coming in and heading for the Slytherin table.

"Excuse me," Ginny said vaguely, and she was not sure if she was talking to Hermione or Dean, since they were both in mid-sentence about something. "I'll be right back."

She stood abruptly, leaving her shepherd's pie half-finished, and strode across the hall, weaving around to the far end of the Slytherin table, where Malfoy had just sat down. There were few people near him—a group of first or second years a little ways down on his right, and far, far down on the left, sat Harper and Vaisey. Still, it was a little unsettling, marching right up to the Slytherin table, but that's what Ginny did.

"Malfoy," she said, and her voice sounded louder, more combative, than she meant it to. She winced as she noticed Harper and Vaisey look over at her.

Malfoy did not look up, though he'd obviously heard her. For half a second, he seemed frozen, and then, quite calmly, he began piling roast beef onto his plate. "What do you want, Weasley?"

She remembered what he'd said the other day, about not wanting to walk up to the Gryffindor table in the middle of dinner. "I'm walking up to the Slytherin table," she said, wondering if her light-hearted tone sounded a little too anxious. "In the middle of dinner. See how easy it is?"

"Is that the only reason you came over here?" he drawled. He still was not looking at her.

"No, you prat." Not liking the feel of eyes on her, Ginny plopped down onto the bench opposite him. Which, of course, only drew more eyes. Including Malfoy's.

"What are you doing?" he hissed. "You can't sit here!"

Ginny rolled her eyes. "What are they going to do, give me detention?" It wasn't a written-in-stone rule, that you couldn't sit at other House tables. It was just, you didn't sit at other House tables. "No one cares." That was obviously _not_ true, judging by some of the scowls she was getting from Slytherins down the table, but she looked back at Malfoy and tried to ignore them.

"What do you want, then?" he asked gruffly.

Ginny wedged her hands under her legs so that she wouldn't fidget. "You said the Slytherins were being targeted. I want to know how."

"You saw the common room, Weasley."

"Yes, but you told me that before that happened. So? What exactly did you mean? How are the Slytherins being targeted, aside from your common room being defaced?"

Malfoy snuck a glance at her as he tucked into his pudding. Now that she was under his gaze, she felt just as uncomfortable as he had looked a few seconds before, and not just because she was sitting at the Slytherin table, putting her pride aside and talking to Malfoy like a normal person. It was because she could not stop thinking of the last time they'd spoken. She could not stop remembering everything she'd said to him. And while she was not sure that he didn't deserve it all, she couldn't forget the look on his face either, and the way he'd fled from her after she'd said it.

"Why do you want to know?" Malfoy finally asked.

Ginny shrugged. "Because," she said, forcing the words out, "if it's really happening, maybe…something needs to be done about it."

Malfoy's eyebrows shot up. "You mean you want to _help?_ "

"I don't know, Malfoy," Ginny said, irritated. She _didn't_ know. All she knew was, if the only reason she wanted to fight the Slytherins was because she needed to have _someone_ to fight—as she had shamefully admitted to Malfoy three nights ago—then she needed to establish if they were actually deserving of her enmity. Because if they weren't, then, well….

She had gone off on Malfoy that night because she was already rattled, and it had felt good, to throw it all back at him, especially since he probably did deserve it. But that last thing she'd said—that she couldn't stop fighting—that had spilled out from someplace inside of her that Ginny didn't even know existed, and it frightened her. It meant that maybe Hermione was right, and she'd been looking for fights. And now, after what happened to the Slytherin common room, it was starting to seem like she'd been looking in the wrong place.

"Look, I don't even know what's going on," Ginny said. "What you meant, when you said the Slytherins were being targeted. So will you just tell me?"

Draco narrowed his eyes at her. He shoveled another forkful of pudding into his mouth and chewed, studying her all the while. Ginny tried to remain calm as he stared at her.

Then he said, "I can do better than that. I can show you."

"Show me?" That sounded rather dire. "What do you mean?"

Draco took a long sip of pumpkin juice and said, "Just meet me up on the seventh floor tomorrow night, after dinner. All right?"

"No, not all right," Ginny said in exasperation. "Meet you for what, Malfoy?"

Malfoy smirked at her, and though it was such a familiar expression, Ginny realized she hadn't seen it from him since he'd come back to Hogwarts. "Scared, Weasley?"

"Don't be stupid."

"Then meet me. And you can learn all about how we poor Slytherins are being targeted. Deal?"

Ginny twisted her lips, feeling as though she'd eaten something sour. If he _was_ planning something nasty for her, she'd walked right into it. "Fine, Malfoy. I'll meet you. But if you try anything—" She leaned across the table, summoning her most savage glare "—don't you forget that Bat-Bogey Hex I used on you in Umbridge's office two years ago."

Malfoy looked alarmed, but then he waved his fork at her in a most blasé gesture. "Don't worry, Weasley. I've never forgotten _that_."

And so, twenty-four hours later, on Saturday evening, Ginny traipsed up the stairs of the castle to the seventh floor. She'd slept in late that morning and spent most of the day doing homework, partly because she had fallen behind and partly because it kept her distracted from thinking about meeting Malfoy that evening. Now, though, as she emerged onto the seventh floor, she could hardly think of anything else. She double-checked that she had her wand tucked up the sleeve of her jumper.

"You're late, Weasley."

Ginny looked around. There was Malfoy, lounging against the wall not five feet from her. He looked…odd…and it was a moment before Ginny realized it was because he was wearing black slacks and a dark green t-shirt. She had never seen him in a simple t-shirt in, well, ever.

"How can I be late," she said, trying to get past this disconcerting sight of him, so dressed-down. "You said after dinner. I just finished eating."

"Well, you took your time about it." Malfoy straightened, flicking his head to indicate she should follow him. "Everyone else is probably already there."

"What do you mean, _everyone else?_ Where are we going, Malfoy?" Ginny demanded, as she half-trotted to catch up to him.

"Don't you trust me, Weasley?"

"Don't be ridiculous, of course I don't trust you."

When Malfoy stopped in front of a blank stretch of wall, Ginny could have kicked herself. She glanced at the tapestry behind her, the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy and his dancing trolls. Of course. She should have realized. But… "I thought this place was destroyed last year." _Because of your pal Crabbe_ , she resisted from adding.

"A little singed, is all," Draco said in an abstracted tone. "I don't think anything can actually destroy this place. Now be quiet, Weasley, I need to concentrate."

Ginny bit her tongue, once again feeling for her wand. The Room of Requirement. It didn't matter that Ginny had used the room frequently, mostly to meet with the D.A. or to hide out last year. The room could be anything, and that meant Malfoy could be taking her into anything.

After a few seconds, a door appeared in the wall. With one last enigmatic glance at her, Malfoy pulled open the door and walked inside. Ginny followed, slightly mollified that he'd gone first.

Once she was inside, Ginny blinked several times, her eyes adjusting to the dimness. There were lamps lit all around the large room, but their light had been dampened to a low, cozy glow. The next thing she had to adjust to was the assault of green and silver around her—from the banners hanging on the walls to the cushions set in the numerous armchairs and sofas to the rugs covering the stone floors. There were some bookshelves and a few well-placed desks as well, all in ebony wood, and in the very back of the room, a fire crackled in a large fireplace.

"It's…the Slytherin common room," Ginny said, who recognized it despite only seeing a defaced version of it.

"Not quite," said a blond girl, sitting in the armchair nearest the entrance. Ginny recognized her—Daphne Greengrass. "We haven't got the lake."

For that was the other thing about the room. In addition to all the decor, the room was full of Slytherins—near everyone from Slytherin House, from what Ginny could tell. Sitting in armchairs, bunched together on sofas, a few sitting at the desks, and others who were just standing about, leaning against the bookcases and the walls.

"What the hell, Malfoy?" This came from Dustin Vaisey, who sat on a sofa with Harper in the center of the room, opposite a large, ornate coffee table. "What did you bring _her_ here for? The whole idea of this place was that no one could get in but us!"

"Not one _can_ get in but us," Malfoy said dismissively. "Weasley only got in because she came with me."

"But she could get in on her own now, couldn't she? And she could bring a whole pack of Gryffindors with her, all her bloody D.A. friends!"

"She can't bring anyone in here who isn't a Slytherin." Malfoy descended the two short, shallows steps into the room, but Ginny stayed where she was by the door. "That's how the room works."

"Doesn't answer the question," said Harper quietly. "Why'd you bring her in the first place? This was supposed to be a meeting about what happened to the common room. And what we're going to do about it."

"Yes," said Daphne, "that's what Tracey told me. But whose idea was it to call this meeting in the first place?"

Malfoy put on a confident expression—something almost like the swaggering look he always used to wear, only now, it looked a little tenuous, as though he couldn't quite remember how to summon it. "I did, of course."

Judging by the general reaction of dismay and displeasure at this pronouncement, Ginny judged that most of the Slytherins hadn't realized this. Harper's head snapped up in shock, Daphne's jaw dropped open, another seventh year girl groaned audibly, and Vaisey was quickly turning purple with outrage.

At the back of the room, Blaise Zabini straightened where he stood. "You didn't mention that when you told me about this meeting, Draco. You just said you'd heard it was going to happen."

"Yes." Malfoy smiled evenly, not quite a smirk. "Because I knew you wouldn't spread the word if I said it was my idea."

"And why is that, Draco?" another girl snapped. She was sitting in an armchair opposite Daphne Greengrass, and Ginny guessed she must be her sister, because she had the same ashy blond hair. "Maybe because the whole reason we're so hated now, the whole reason our common room was trashed, was because of you! After all, no one else here was ever a Death Eater, were they?"

"Yeah," said Vaisey, an ugly look on his face, "and you weren't even very good at that, from what I hear."

Ginny looked at Malfoy, edging to the right to get a glimpse of his face. He looked a little pale—paler than usual, anyway—but when he spoke, he sounded a bit like his old self.

"I'm hardly the first or only Death Eater to come out of this House," he drawled. "Laying all the blame on _me_ for what the rest of the students think of us is a little harsh, don't you think, Astoria?" He looked at the girl who had accused him of just that.

"No, you're right." Her blue-green eyes were as hard and cold as chips of ice. "That bloody bint of yours is just as much to blame, Parkinson, for panicking when Voldemort turned up last year and demanded Potter." Then she startled Ginny by looking right at her. "We didn't all want to hand him over to save our own skins, you know."

"Which is exactly the point I wanted to make," Draco said smoothly.

"I still haven't heard any reason to care about anything you have to say, Malfoy," Vaisey sneered.

Malfoy's eyes flashed. Ginny remembered how he'd said he didn't care what Vaisey thought of him, but now she wondered how true that was, as Draco turned to face him head-on.

"You should care, Vaisey, because I'm the only one here who is proposing we _do_ something about these attacks on us." There was a bit of a snarl to his words, marring his calm appearance. " _I'm_ the one who's got a solution, so I suggest you hear me out." His gaze swept the room. "Unless anyone else has some idea how to protect ourselves?"

"I have an idea," said Harper sharply. "Find out whoever's targeting us in the first place."

"And then what?" Malfoy said, skipping over the question of how they would find out who was targeting them, which Ginny thought the more important question. "Confront them?"

"Punish them," Vaisey growled. "But without getting caught. Steal Veritaserum from Slughorn, use it to find out _their_ common room passwords, and muck up _their_ private space."

"Spike their pumpkin juice with a Forgetfulness Potion so they think they're going mad," suggested Daphne Greengrass.

"Spread some nasty rumors about them," said Blaise Zabini, who looked quite thoughtful as he leaned against a bookcase.

"Ask the Bloody Baron to haunt them until they wet themselves," muttered a dark-haired boy on Ginny's left.

"You people are bloody terrifying," Ginny announced. Several Slytherins shot surprised looks her way, as though they'd forgotten she was there, hovering behind Malfoy. She took another step forward, coming abreast of him, and glanced his way. "This is how you convince me the "poor Slytherins" need help?"

"Oh, please, Weasley, don't tell me you were actually put off by that feeble load of drivel." Malfoy's voice dripped scorn. "That was pathetic. I could come up with five better ideas in my sleep."

Ginny privately agreed with this, but she was hardly going to admit so out loud.

"I should've guessed." Vaisey shook his head, his lip curling. "This is why you brought Weasley here? _This_ is your grand solution? You actually think she's going to help us?"

"I might, Vaisey." Ginny planted her feet firmly and faced him. "If I hear a good reason why I should. Which has yet to happen."

" _My_ reason wasn't good enough for you?" Astoria Greengrass demanded. Her eyes blazed as she twisted around in her chair to face Ginny. "Well, how about this, Weasley—not only did many of us not agree with that _cow_ Parkinson when she wanted to turn Potter over, but some of us would have liked to have stayed and fought with the rest of the students. Does that make us good enough for you?"

Ginny gaped at her, and she wasn't the only one. Daphne looked aghast. "You wouldn't really have stayed."

Harper added scornfully, "You weren't even of age."

"So what, Cole? Neither was Colin Creevey," Astoria said, her furious tone dying down into a quiet one, "but he snuck back anyway. And died for it."

The sharp retort on Ginny's mind—that Astoria was full of shit, basically, because it was easy to say that now, that she would have fought—died on her tongue. She didn't know why it shocked her, but it did—that Astoria even knew Colin's name. That she knew who he was, what he'd done, and that he'd died.

Somehow, that opened up a crack in Ginny's resolve. In the idea that the Slytherins were all the same—and not worth it.

"You did ask me, Weasley," Malfoy said grimly, "where the Slytherins were during the battle last year. There's your answer. McGonagall didn't give any of them the chance to stay."

"And what about the rest of the year, Malfoy?" Ginny demanded. "Where were you all when the rest of us were living under the Carrows' thumb?"

It was Harper who answered then, his voice so soft that it was a moment before Ginny realized he was the one speaking. "We were in the same place you were, Weasley." His eyes were fixed on the dark table in front of him. "Living in the same hell."

Ginny folded her arms over her chest. She told herself it was so she might look imposing, but she couldn't help but feel that it was to guard herself instead. "That's rich, coming from you."

"Why?" He jerked his head up. "Because I did what Carrow made me do, and cast the Cruciatus Curse on you?"

"Oh, right." A dry, disbelieving laugh escaped Ginny's lips. "He _made_ you do it, and you didn't enjoy a single part of it—"

"I didn't!" Harper was on his feet in an instant, his dark eyes glimmering with fury. "Is that what you think?" Now he was the one to laugh, and Ginny wondered if her own laugh had sounded so hollow, so dead. "Merlin, it must be so _nice_ to be you, Weasley. Ginny Weasley, champion of the people, rebelling against the Death Eaters. It must have been so easy for you, defying Carrow at every turn, refusing his orders, even when it meant more pain, even when it meant risking your safety, your family's safety—"

"It wasn't," Ginny whispered. He was so wrong about that, and yet, for some reason, his description of her stung. "It was never easy."

"Neither was what I did." Harper was trembling, though with what—anger, fear, shame?—Ginny couldn't guess. "But I didn't _feel_ like I had a choice. I didn't know how to be a bloody hero like you. I was—I was scared—not just that day, but every second of every bloody day last year. I didn't enjoy it, Weasley. Not ever."

Ginny tightened her arms across her chest until she was practically hugging herself. So he had been scared, so what? It was over now for him, just like it was for Malfoy, just like it was for all of them— "I still have nightmares about that day," she said, and her voice was thicker than she liked.

Harper met her gaze, and she was startled to see the wetness glistening in his eyes. "So do I, Weasley."

Malfoy said, "He was just a kid, Weasley. Just like you."

Ginny turned on him angrily. "I didn't feel much like a kid, Malfoy."

"Yeah, well," Harper said, his voice hoarse, "neither did I."

Ginny turned on her heel to face him again. She wanted to call _this_ a load of dung too, only, standing there, with his fists clenched by his sides and defiant tears in his eyes, Harper had never looked more like a kid. A scared kid, just like he said. One who, like Ginny, was maybe still scared.

Ginny unfolded her arms long enough to run a shaky hand through her hair, mussing it thoroughly. She drew in a slow, silent breath, trying to steady herself, wondering when she had lost control here. Maybe she'd never had it to begin with.

She turned away, hoping she didn't look as brittle as she felt. Her buckling knees barely held her up long enough to get to the steps behind her, where she sat, pulling one leg up to her chest. She set her quivering chin on her knee and clenched her jaw, determined not to move until she felt more stable. She could feel eyes on her, all their eyes, and it burned.

Then Malfoy was there, right in front of her, blocking out all the eyes. All she could see were his knees. "Look, Weasley," he said, and if his voice was not exactly contrite, it was at least impassive. "I didn't bring you here to attack you."

Slowly, Ginny raised her head to look him in the face. About ten different retorts sprang to mind, most of which expressed that, yes, she _did_ feel under attack, and how could she not, one Gryffindor alone with the rest of Slytherin House. But she swallowed all this, her mouth twisting bitterly at him in silence.

"Forget me," he said bluntly. "Forget Harper, even. We're not all of Slytherin House." He raised an arm, gesturing to all the others behind him. "What about the Muggleborns?"

"Muggleborns?" Ginny echoed.

"There _are_ Muggleborns in Slytherin, you know." Draco turned and pointed out a mousy girl who was sitting at one of the desks, alongside Millicent Bulstrode. "Like Tracey Davis over there. She's Muggleborn, aren't you, Davis?"

"Yeah." Tracey Davis raised her arm in a disgruntled wave. "Hi."

"Though it is rare," Malfoy admitted.

Tracey huffed. "Not so rare as you'd probably like, Draco."

Malfoy widened his eyes innocently. "I'm not saying a word against you, Trace."

"But you have before. Many times." The Davis girl eyed the Greengrass sisters. "And you aren't the only one."

"Tracey!" Daphne protested. She straightened in her chair and gestured towards Ginny. "We're supposed to be convincing Weasley we're worth helping!"

"Well, _I_ am," Tracey grumbled.

Daphne sighed. "Tracey had us all fooled into thinking she was half-blood until fourth year," she said to Ginny. "Which is quite brilliant, actually. But then Pansy found out and, well, we all turned on her."

"Nice," Ginny said dryly.

"At first," Daphne hastened to add. "But eventually, I decided that my sister was right and that Pansy was a cow and that, well, I didn't care what she thought. And we were friends again then, weren't we, Trace?"

Tracey added resentfully, "In secret, anyway."

"Yes, well." Daphne actually had the grace to look abashed. "Look, I'm not proud of it. But Pansy is gone now, and good riddance. Because I really don't care who's Muggleborn and who's pureblood and who's not, and I'm not the only one here that thinks that either, Weasley."

Ginny only nodded, too exhausted to make another response. The truth was, it wasn't so hard to accept that some of the Slytherins didn't share the Death Eaters' prejudices. Certainly it was easier to accept than the idea of Harper being just as much a victim as she was.

"Of course," and it was Millicent Bulstrode who spoke now, "Davis being Muggleborn didn't stop a pack of Ravenclaw girls from bullying us in the library. They even called Davis a Muggle-hater."

Ginny frowned. "What Ravenclaw girls? And why would they do that?"

"We didn't ask their names, Weasley," Daphne said primly. "We got out of there as soon as we could. It's no good picking fights with Ravenclaws, they have too many tricks up their sleeves. And as for why they did it, no idea. I swear we didn't do anything to provoke them. They were glaring murder at us the minute we walked into the library, like we didn't belong there. And then when Tracey got up to put up a pile of books, one of them shoved her from behind and another slapped all the books out of her hands and called her a Muggle-hater."

Ginny squinted. "For no reason?"

"Yes, Weasley, for no reason." Daphne threw her arms up, exasperated.

"It's true." Ginny lifted her head as Blaise Zabini spoke up. He'd been so still and quiet in the back that she'd nearly forgotten he was there. "I was there, I saw it all. And as for me, I've definitely been getting a lot more "accidental" shoves in the corridors lately."

"We all have," Harper said sourly. He was seated again, on the sofa, and he gestured to Vaisey beside him. "That's nothing. Dustin got ambushed by a couple of blokes on the way to Quidditch practice one morning. They stuffed him in a closet and broke his wand. He was locked in there for hours before anyone found him."

Ginny looked at Vaisey, who was scowling at the coffee table. He said nothing to confirm or deny this story, possibly because he was too embarrassed to admit it was true. Ginny had no problem believing that it was, but…

"And before you ask, Weasley," Harper said icily, reading her mind, "no, he didn't do anything to provoke them. Just like we didn't do anything to provoke Thomas and Finnegan after the Quidditch match last week when they tried to pick a fight with us."

"What?" Ginny sat up straight, a new flare of indignation washing some of her weariness away. "You two started that, not them!"

Harper glowered. "How would you know, Weasley? You weren't there, were you, you were in the changing rooms. You came out into the middle of it."

Ginny already had her mouth open to argue this point when she realized he was right. Demelza had come in and said "Harper and Vaisey," and that was all. By the time Ginny had gotten outside, Vaisey was slinging insults…but, she admitted grudgingly, that didn't mean the Slytherin boys had started it. Still… "I can't believe Dean tried to pick a fight with you. He wouldn't do that."

"He didn't seem too happy about it, I'll give you that," Harper admitted. But Finnegan? He was spoiling for a fight. All Dustin and I were doing was going back to the castle, and he stopped _us_. We didn't start it, Weasley."

Ginny didn't like to believe this, but unfortunately, it was all too believable. Seamus had always been a bit of a hothead, and then…well. It was all too possible. Especially when she considered that Dean had returned to the castle alone a little while later, even though she could've sworn that Seamus had stayed behind to wait for him…

"And Goyle," Malfoy spoke up suddenly. "He got jumped like I did. Well, they didn't beat on him, like me, it was only a sucker-punch. But they split his lip open. Some Hufflepuff kid, wasn't it?"

Goyle stood in the back of the room near Blaise Zabini. He'd been silent as usual, and his face was sullen as he muttered, "Thought you weren't going to tell anyone about that, Draco."

"Why would you think that?" Draco made a face. "I never said anything of the sort."

Goyle's voice was a low growl. "Just thought I could trust you, is all."

Draco paled at that, but Ginny didn't think anyone noticed except her, because Astoria had begun speaking, waving a dismissive hand. "It's not just the seventh years, either. I've been putting up with all sorts of rubbish since term started. A lot of it is piddly kid stuff, like Geoffrey Hooper tossing a dung beetle into my _perfect_ Draught of Peace and ruining it, or some of the others ganging up to hex me while we're practicing in Defense Against the Dark Arts. But then there was the time—" Her eyes darkened "—when Romilda Vane pushed me into the lake while I was studying there. Ruined my Herbology assignment and everything, _and_ I completely lost my essay for Ancient Runes."

"But—look—" Ginny rubbed a hand over one eye. "I mean, why don't you all just _tell_ someone about this, a teacher—"

"Tell them what?" Astoria scoffed. "That we're being picked on?"

"I think Slughorn has a good idea what's going on, actually," Harper said, "but there's only so much he can do. I mean, if he sees something, he can put a stop to it, give detention, but…" He shrugged.

"And yet you think _I_ can do something about it." Ginny looked at Draco now. He stood in the center of the room, arms crossed over his chest, and he actually looked lost in thought until Ginny pinned him with her gaze. "Which is what, exactly? I mean, if I see something, I can try and stop it, but…"

"That's exactly it, Weasley," Malfoy said, a little impatiently, as though he couldn't believe she was too stupid to understand this. "Don't you get it? Look, revenge is all well and good—" He looked around at the rest of the room as he said this "—but it will only get us so far. They hit us, we hit them, and it never stops. But if you stick up for us, Weasley—if you put a stop to it when you see it, if you support us—if you're even just seen talking to some of us—"

"But—" Ginny climbed to her feet. "I'm just one person, Malfoy. What makes you think everyone will just follow my example, just like that?"

"Oh, _please_." This exclamation came from Zabini, and Ginny looked around at him as he straightened and looked right at her. "Don't act as though you don't know. Cole said it all—you're _Ginny Weasley_. Defender of Hogwarts, hero and rebel, you and Longbottom practically led the whole school against the Carrows last year. And to top it off, you're the girlfriend of the bloody Chosen One—"

"I'm not," Ginny said, and the words were out before she could stop them.

"Not what?" Zabini arched an eyebrow. "A rebel? A hero?"

Daphne's jaw dropped open. "Not _Potter's girlfriend?_ No! Since when?"

"I—" Ginny felt her cheeks growing warm. "That's not…relevant."

"It bloody well is," Daphne replied. "If Potter is single, interested parties want to know."

Now Astoria was the one to look aghast at her sister.

"Look, enough about Potter," Draco snapped, drawing all eyes back to him. "Weasley's right, he doesn't matter, because he's not here. _She_ is, though." He fixed Ginny with a pointed expression. "So? I think we've pretty well lined it all out for you, Weasley. If you don't believe us about what's been going on, well, I don't know what else to say to convince you. But if you do…. Will you help us? Fight _for_ us, instead of against us?"

Ginny flexed her fingers, struggling to conceal her hesitation. Perhaps Harry _was_ relevant, because they had essentially ended things over a disagreement about Malfoy…a disagreement that came about because Harry had done what Malfoy was asking her to do here. But then, it wasn't exactly the same. Harry had vouched for Malfoy, and Ginny still wasn't sure that Malfoy deserved that. But he wasn't the only one here. This was all of Slytherin House, and the fact was, after what had happened to the common room, it wasn't difficult to believe everything they were saying.

She didn't have to fight for Malfoy. Nor, even, for Harper. Just for some of these others. And wasn't that something, something _real_ to fight?

So she heaved a breath, shoved a hand back through her hair, and said, "Look…I'll do what I can." It wasn't an impassioned vow, it wasn't a grand declaration of commitment. But it was all she could promise for now.


	4. Chapter 4

CHAPTER FOUR

Weasley was true to her word, even if that word had been rather lukewarm. _I'll do what I can_. Draco knew some of the Slytherins didn't think it was enough. Some of them had looked frustrated at her pronouncement; others merely shook their heads, as though they hadn't expected anything better.

Draco, on the other hand, was pleased they'd gotten that much from her. And over the next few weeks, it proved useful. He heard from other Slytherins that Ginny had taken to stepping in when they were being bullied or provoked, when she saw it happening in the corridors and on the grounds. He'd also seen her hanging out with Daphne and her crowd a few times, in the library and outside during free times.

She might have only said she would do what she could, but it seemed to be working. At least a little. In the meantime, Draco had begun to turn his focus elsewhere.

He was beginning to have definite suspicions about Blaise Zabini. He understood why Goyle had come back to school this year—honestly, even if last year had been perfectly normal, Goyle probably could have used a repeat year to get any N.E.W.T.s. Daphne, he understood, had come back because of her sister, and Bulstrode did whatever Daphne did. Davis had missed out last year entirely because she was Muggleborn. And of course, Draco knew why he himself had returned.

That left only Blaise. Who, for all his bluster, probably did not need a job. More importantly, Draco had begun to realize he didn't even need _classes_. Not to achieve his N.E.W.T.s. Because Blaise was a bloody genius.

Draco was not sure why he had never realized it before, given that they had shared so many classes for seven years. Maybe it was just that Draco had not ever paid Blaise much attention, concerning himself with only Crabbe and Goyle and, well, frankly, with himself. Or maybe it was because there were so fewer of them this year. But as the weeks slid by, getting closer to the Christmas holidays, Draco began to keep an eye on Blaise. And he had begun to realize that Blaise did not need his classes. His potions were perfect, even when he seemed to pay no attention to Slughorn, and he aced everything in Ancient Runes, even though Draco had never seen him crack open a book on the subject. In fact, Draco never saw him studying at all. He was always chatting with girls in the common room or lounging outside when the weather was not too cold or reading books in the dormitory—not school books, but books for pleasure.

There were a few times, Draco noted, when Blaise disappeared completely. When Draco could not find him in the common room, or in the library or the Great Hall, and it was always in the evening, when it was dark out, so he wouldn't have been outside on the grounds. Draco watched him at it enough to identify exactly when it was he was disappearing—every Tuesday night and Friday night. One night, he even came back to the dormitory quite late, after everyone else was asleep—everyone except Draco, who was only feigning sleep.

It was definitely dodgy, and it had Draco worried. Someone, after all, had helped outsiders get into the common room. Most people just assumed some poor Slytherin had been threatened or bewitched into giving out the password, which was likely. And Draco could not _really_ think why Blaise should have wanted the common room messed up, but then, he also hadn't seemed very surprised when it happened. And of all the Slytherins, he was one of the few who didn't really have any tale to tell about being targeted or bullied. And Draco was beginning to think there was a reason why.

Of course, when he explained all this to Ginny Weasley, a week before Christmas holidays, she thought he was mad. "You're saying he _wanted_ someone to muck up your common room? But why? It's his common room too."

"Well, I don't know, Weasley." Draco was a bit peeved that she didn't find his suspicions believable. "Maybe he didn't _want_ it to happen, but just made a deal with someone. You know, no one messes with him, and in exchange he gave them the password."

Weasley still looked unconvinced. "That seems a little far-fetched, Malfoy. Whoever did it probably just intimidated some first year into giving up the password."

Draco suppressed an aggravated sigh. "Yes, that's the popular theory. But I think Zabini is up to something. I don't know, maybe it has nothing to do with the common room, but don't you think we should find out what he's doing?"

"We? _We?_ "

"Well, why I do you think I'm telling you all this? We're not exactly pals, are we?"

They were not, though an outside spectator might have thought they were, given they were sitting together in the library. Draco had interrupted Weasley in the middle of her Muggle Studies essay, apparently, which maybe explained her irritation with him now.

Ginny sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. "Look, just because I agreed to start sticking up for you lot—"

"And you've done a bang-up job too, Weasley," Draco said, striving for a pleasant tone. Perhaps some easy flattery would win her over.

Judging by the look she gave him, perhaps not. "I can't help but feel that this is you acting out of boredom, Malfoy. I mean, I suppose this is what you Slytherins get up to in your free time? Spying on each other, plotting against one another?"

Draco opened his mouth to remind her not to be so prejudiced, but then paused, thinking it over. The fact was, she was sort of right. Well, not about his being bored, but about what Slytherins liked to get up to in their free time. "Look, just come with me on Friday night. He's been sneaking out of the common room and coming back very late, and I want to know where he's going."

"Why not just do it yourself? Why do I have to come?"

"Going by myself, that's not very prudent," Draco scoffed. "What if something happened to me?"

"So I'm your protection, is that it?"

"There is a bonus in it for you, you know."

"Which is what? Spending time with your illustrious self?"

Draco struggled not to respond with a jibe of his own. "No. You'll get to see the Slytherin common room. The _actual_ Slytherin common room."

Her eyebrow hitched at that. "What? Why?"

"Because," Draco said, a little resigned—the Slytherin common room was _sacred_ , after all, but then, Weasley had already seen it when it was defaced, "I'm fairly certain Blaise has been sneaking out using the secret passage that leads out from inside it."

* * *

On Friday night, at eleven o'clock, Draco slipped quietly out of his dormitory, ignoring Harper's stare. Goyle and Vaisey were both asleep, but Cole was awake reading. Still, it was not so suspicious, Draco leaving the dormitory, though he supposed Cole might be wondering why Draco was fully dressed in trousers and a button-down.

Thankfully, there was no one left down in the common room; some might still be awake, like Harper, but up in their dormitories by now. Draco slid open the entrance to the common room and poked his head outside. "Weasley?"

The wall across from him seemed to…ripple…and then, there was Weasley, the Disillusionment Charm she'd cast on herself fading off. "About time, Malfoy," she groused.

"Just get in here."

She did so, and Draco closed the entrance behind her. He still felt vaguely like a traitor, and was a little annoyed when all Weasley did was cast a barely interested glance around the room and said, "So? Where is this secret passage?"

Draco threw her a disgruntled look. "This way."

As he led her towards the back of the room, Ginny said, "Explain something to me, Malfoy."

"What?"

"Well, if there is a secret passageway leading out from your common room, don't you think whoever mucked it up might've gotten in through it?"

"Even if they did, they still needed the password." Draco stopped by a large bookcase backed into an alcove, catercorner to the corridor that led to the dormitories. "You can't get back through without it. Anyhow, hardly anyone knows about this passage, not even most of the Slytherins." He frowned as he pulled out a series of seemingly random books on the shelf. "I certainly didn't think _Zabini_ knew about it."

He pulled out the last book and the bookcase moved, slowly shuddering inward—and revealing the long, dark passageway behind it, leading out of the castle.

Ginny peered into the darkness. "Where does it go? Not out the castle, surely. You could've used it to get the Death Eaters in."

Draco swallowed at her casual mention of what he'd done sixth year, trying not to let any discomfort show on his face. "It only goes to the boathouse. It's not far, come on."

They both took out their wands and lit them, then ventured into the darkness. The passageway was stone all the way around, carefully built and not just carved out of the earth. It was also cold; sturdy though the walls seemed to be, they obviously had not been built to protect against the outside air, which was positively frigid. Draco kept his free hand stuffed in his pocket, wishing he'd brought gloves and a coat, or at least a jumper, like Weasley had.

"So," Draco said, after a few minutes' silence, "why did you and Potter break up?"

Even in the dim light of his wand, Draco noticed the way Weasley stiffened. The look she shot him over her shoulder was scathing. "What do you care?"

Draco shrugged. "It's something to talk about." Maybe it was just that he still loathed Potter, just a bit, and wanted to gloat. Silently, of course.

"Why do we have to talk at all?"

"Well, it is very dark and gloomy down here, Weasley, and the silence only makes it more so."

Weasley's voice turned scornful. "Scared of the dark, Malfoy?"

"No."

Silence fell again. Then, to Draco's surprise, Ginny said in a curt tone, "We argued. I said some things I shouldn't have, he said some things he shouldn't have. That was before term started. We haven't spoken since."

She did not say, Draco noted, what they'd argued about. "So that's it? You're done, just like that?"

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"Just doesn't sound very final, is all. You don't think you'll patch things up?"

"I cannot believe I am having this conversation with you," Weasley grumbled. Possibly not for his ears, but he heard all the same. "You sound like Greengrass."

"Astoria?"

"Daphne. She practically asked for my permission to ask Harry out herself."

That should've surprised Draco, maybe, but then, Daphne was like a female Blaise. Pansy had once called Blaise "hard to please," but he wasn't at all. (Draco was pretty sure Pansy had only said that because Blaise had spurned her, at some point.) "What did you tell her?" Draco asked, referring to Daphne.

"I told her he seems rather too busy for dating while he's training to work with the Aurors, but that if she really was interested, she might catch him in Hogsmeade next term." She sounded wholly unruffled, as though she really didn't care if Daphne asked Potter out. "Him and Ron will probably come to visit Hermione, if they can get away."

Draco mulled this over. "Hmm."

Weasley's shoulders tensed in the light of his wand. "What?"

"It just doesn't sound like you're very invested in mending things with him, is all."

"Well, maybe I'm not, Malfoy! And what business is it of yours, anyway?" Before he could make a response, she changed tack. "Why did you come back to Hogwarts, and in the middle of term, no less?"

"What?" Draco was not prepared for such a question. "What does that matter?"

"It's something to talk about," she said snidely.

"Oh, well played, Weasley," Draco muttered.

"Well, you said Blaise didn't have a real reason to come back, but what about you? You surely could've managed your N.E.W.T.s already, Hermione said you've always been one of the top students in your year."

Draco felt as though he'd been smacked around the head. "She said _what?_ " It was true, of course, but he never would have imagined _Granger_ might pay him a compliment.

"And it's not like you're going to do anything with your N.E.W.T.s," she went on. "So? Why come back, then?" She said this flippantly, as though it were nothing to her, but Draco thought he detected an edge to her voice.

He considered telling her it was none of her business, just as she had done. But then, she _had_ let on a little bit about Potter, so, he thought grudgingly, perhaps he'd do the same. He was trying to demonstrate that he wasn't a totally awful human being, after all. "I came back because I had to get away from my parents," he said. "For a short while, at least." That was only part of the truth, but he wasn't going to share _everything_ with her. She hadn't, after all.

"Why?"

Draco twisted his mouth. He really did not want to think about this, let alone talk about it, so he said it very fast. "Because they won't shut up acting like it's such a tragedy, that the Dark—that Voldemort was defeated, and I couldn't stand listening to them anymore."

A stunned silence followed this proclamation. Then Weasley said—quite softly— "And you….don't agree with them."

Draco gazed at the back of her head, and wondered what he would have to do to ever be good enough in her eyes. "Not anymore." He gave a hollow laugh. "Do you really think your precious Potter would've spoken for me if I did?"

Ginny did not answer that. Draco, for some reason, couldn't stand her silence.

"I grew up believing all that," he admitted. "And when my father was sent to Azkaban, I was—I was angry. Enough to take the Dark Mark. But once I actually saw what it all meant…" His voice turned hoarse. "I didn't want any part of it." _Can't you believe that?_ he wanted to add.

That was why he'd asked her to come with him, he realized. That was why he'd spoken to her that day in the entrance hall and asked her to come get her scarf with him, that was why he'd brought her to meet with the Slytherins. Because at some point, Ginny Weasley had become the goal. The line by which he judged himself. If he could just prove to her, make _her_ see that he was not all bad, and that he could come back from everything he'd done…then maybe it was possible. It was a challenge, of sorts, but it was something Draco desperately needed.

Maybe it was because of the way she'd looked at him, that day she'd bumped into him, his first week back. She'd condemned him with that look. And ever since then, he just wanted to prove to her that she was wrong. Because he _needed_ her to be wrong.

He didn't know how he could go on living if she wasn't.

"So you came back," Ginny said, bringing him out of this thoughts. "And yet, you don't seem to have any friends left here."

"It's still better than the alternative." That was sort of sad to admit, but it was true.

"Although," Weasley said, her voice echoing off the stone walls and floating back to Draco, "it's odd. They didn't seem happy about it, but when we met with your House in the Room of Requirement, they all looked to you. They listened to you. Why is that?"

"Force of habit," Draco said gloomily. He didn't delude himself into thinking they actually respected him.

"I'm serious, Malfoy."

"So am I. They were scared and they wanted someone to do something about it, and I was the only one offering any real suggestions. It doesn't mean they like me any better." Draco squinted ahead. "Do you see the end up there? I think we must be near the boathouse."

Weasley raised her wand a little higher. "I think it's just ahead. Where does it come out to, exactly?"

"There's some stairs at the end of the tunnel here, comes out to a trapdoor in the boathouse supply closet."

They reached the stairs at the end of the tunnel in less than a minute. The stairs were stone too, but narrow and built into the sloping wall, more like ladder rungs than stairs. So Weasley tucked her wand away as she climbed up, while Draco held his wand up high to light her way. At the top of the steps, she reached up with one hand and pushed open the trapdoor. Once she'd vanished through it, Draco climbed up behind her. Weasley didn't bother to light his way, so he spent the first few steps stumbling and cursing on the stairs. Then—just below the top—a light flickered on above him. Weasley must have lit a lantern or something in the closet.

As he emerged above the trapdoor, into the closet, he saw that there _was_ a lantern lit, sitting on the floor beside him. By its light, he watched as Weasley fumbled with the closet's doorknob. "It's locked," she muttered, and pointed her wand at it. " _Alohomora._ "

The latch _clicked_ open. Weasley twisted the knob and stepped out into the boathouse.

Then there was a loud _snap_ , and Weasley vanished with a sharp cry.

"Weasley? Weasley! _Shit_." Yanking out his wand, Draco scrambled out through the trapdoor, kicking it shut behind him. His stomach tight with dread, he took a step forward, wand raised, into the doorway. "Weasley?"

She hadn't actually vanished into thin air. This was some relief, but it was a short-lived spark, because instead, she was hanging from the boathouse ceiling, wrapped in a tight web of netting. And also, she was flipping out.

"Get it off me, get me down!" she cried, her voice high and thin with panic. "Help me, Malfoy!"

"Well, hold still." Draco raised his wand, but she was wriggling so much that he couldn't aim properly. The netting was thin, and it would be easy to hit her instead of it with his Severing Charm.

"Get me down, get it off, get me down now!" Weasley sounded not at all like herself, on the verge of tears. Tears of pure, undiluted fear.

"I'm trying, stop _moving_ ," Draco growled, squinting. It didn't help that there was very little light to see by, just the lantern on the floor behind him and another dimly glowing lantern on the far side of the boathouse. He moved forward and around, coming almost beneath her to see better. "Merlin, Weasley, calm down."

"Malfoy, please," she begged, her voice cracking.

"Piss it," Draco muttered. She didn't sound like she cared if he accidentally hurt her. Taking the best aim he could, he said, " _Diffindo_."

A great rent in the netting opened up and Weasley fell, tumbling through the hole—and crashing into him. Draco's knees went out from under him and he sprawled flat onto his back. He fell so hard that all the breath _whooshed_ out of him, and for a few seconds, he lay on the boathouse floor, struggling for air, black spots dotting his vision.

"Get if off me, get it off, _off_ —"

"Merlin—" Malfoy gasped, as his vision cleared. Weasley had fallen on top of him with one of her knees pinning him down and digging into his middle. Some of the netting had come with her when she fell—just a scrap—overlaying her arm and shoulder, but she was still in such a panic to get it off that she couldn't seem to manage it.

"Get it _off_ —" she moaned again, a note of hysteria in her voice.

"Weasley, stop, _stop_." Malfoy sat up as far as he could to tear the scrap of netting off her and fling it away. Then, because she was still hyperventilating, he grabbed her by the arms and said, "Ginny. _Stop_."

Ginny sucked in a huge breath and slumped forward, all the fight gone out of her. She placed a hand on his chest to anchor herself, and her fingers trembled against him. "Malfoy—"

"Merlin, calm down, Weasley." He tried to inject some irritation into these words, but he couldn't. Seeing her so shaken, so unlike herself, had shaken _him_ , and he didn't know what to do or say. "What is wrong with you?"

"I—nothing." Her fingers dug into his chest, but Draco thought she was just trying to steady herself, not hurt him. He watched as she gulped a deep breath, this one longer and slower. Her long hair was mussed from her tussle with the netting, falling down over her face like a curtain, and in the dim light of the lanterns, it was the color of burnished copper. "I'm fine. I'm fine," she repeated, as though trying to convince herself. "Why are you staring at me?"

Draco raised an eyebrow. "You're sitting on top of me. Bit hard to look anywhere else."

"Oh." Draco felt her move, but all she did was shift her weight, her left leg slipping off him. Now she was straddling him, albeit lopsidedly. "Right."

She didn't move, didn't try to stand. Maybe she couldn't. Draco could still feel her shaking, and her face was pasty white. For several long seconds, she just stared at him, and he at her. Her fingers were entrenched in the folds of his shirt, kneading his chest, and Draco suddenly realized he was still holding her arms, and how close she was…

It swept over him then, unexpected but vehement. The desire to kiss her.

As though reading his mind, Ginny jerked away from him, sitting up straight and wrenching out of his grip. Draco felt absurd; had he actually just thought he wanted to kiss her? It was only because she was _on top of him_ , he told himself, and what else was he supposed to think, with her face inches away from his…

"Who left that here?" Ginny asked as she slowly, arduously, climbed off him. Draco winced, his back aching and his head pounding from where it had smacked into the floor. "That net—"

"Seemed like a modified Binding Spell," Draco said, as he pushed himself onto his elbows. "Left behind as a trap by…" A trap. _Shit_. "Blaise." Draco clambered to his feet, ignoring the little aches and pains that followed. "Come on, we have to hurry. It might have been a warning for him, he might've just been here—"

Without waiting to see if Weasley followed, he darted out of the boathouse.

The night outside was black and beastly cold. Draco wished more than ever that he'd thought to bring a coat, but he didn't have long to dwell on it. He turned left and right, eyes scanning the grounds, the Quidditch pitch in the distance, Hagrid's cabin across the way, and—

There. On the winding path up to the castle, Draco saw them—two figures, one tall and the other smaller, both fleeing into the darkness. If it weren't for the torches lit along the path, he probably couldn't have seen them at all, not in this dark. "Hey!" he shouted. "Stop there!" He tore off after them, pulling his wand from his pocket.

"Malfoy, _wait_ —" he heard Weasley gasp, but he didn't stop as he sprinted up the path. The taller of the two figures ahead was a good thirty meters away, but the other, smaller figure was lagging behind.

Taking careful aim with his wand, he shouted, " _Petrificus Totalus!_ "

There was a short shriek, abruptly cut off as the person he hit stiffened like a board and toppled over. Up ahead, the taller figure looked back and stuttered to a halt.

"Damn it, Draco!" the figure yelled. It was Blaise. "What the hell is wrong with you?"

Draco didn't answer—he was too busy trying to catch his breath as he ran towards the person he'd cursed. Whoever it was, Blaise reached them first, stumbling back down the path. With a flick of his wand, he removed Draco's Body-Bind, and the smaller figure—a girl, Draco realized—sat up slowly.

"Are you all right?" Blaise demanded, his voice unusually anxious. Blaise was never anxious. He was always cool, composed.

"I think so." The girl stood, gingerly touching the side of her face. Then she turned to Draco. "What the hell, Malfoy!"

A few meters short of them, Draco finally stopped, inhaling deeply. He stared at the girl, recognizing her. "What…the hell…is right."

A flurry of pounding footsteps and heavy breathing alerted him to Weasley's arrival. "What…" Her hair was wilder than ever, and her face was still a little white, but her focus was entirely on the two people before them. " _Parvati?_ "

The girl—Parvati Patil, of all people—shook her head. "What in Merlin's name are you doing out here, Ginny? And with _him?_ " She flung an arm towards Draco.

Ginny gawked at Parvati. "I could ask you the same question!" She gestured feebly towards Blaise. "And at this time of night—"

Draco leaned over and heaved in a huge breath, filling his lungs with air. Then he straightened and began to laugh.

Weasley whirled on him, annoyance imprinted on her face. "What is so funny, you prat!"

"Isn't it obvious?" Draco nodded between Blaise and Patil, the former who looked chagrined and the latter who was turning red. "They snuck out here to meet each other. Unless—hang on…" Draco looked at Blaise. "You didn't actually bring her _through_ the common room, did you? Through the secret passage? What the hell, you wanker, are we just letting anyone into the common room now?"

Blaise said icily, "You obviously did the same thing, Draco."

"Yes, so we could figure out what you were up to, not so I could snog her!"

Only then did Weasley catch on. Her jaw dropped. "Wait—you don't mean—" She looked between Blaise and Patil. "You and _him?_ Oh my god, Parvati!"

Draco would have laughed at how scandalized she sounded if he didn't feel a bit scandalized himself. "She's a _Gryffindor_."

"Excuse me? Hark who's talking!" Blaise shot back, looking at Ginny.

"I told you, we were following you, you git!" Draco snapped. "I thought you were up to something, you've been acting so dodgy, and I couldn't figure out why you were back at school when you obviously didn't need…hang on." Draco frowned. "You didn't—don't tell me _she's_ the reason you came back this year? You came back for a _girl?_ "

Zabini scrubbed a hand through his hair and looked away, but Patil didn't share his embarrassment. She stepped forward, coming face to face with Draco. "Yes, he did." She raised her chin at him. "Because I asked him to. And he doesn't care that I'm a Gryffindor and I don't care that he's a Slytherin! Isn't that all a little juvenile?"

"Yeah," said Blaise, recovering himself a bit. "Anyway, she _is_ a pureblood, and not the biggest blood traitor around, like Weasley over there."

Predictably, both Weasley and Patil looked outraged by this. Ginny settled for glaring at Blaise, but Patil whirled on him. "What the hell does that matter? If she's a blood traitor and I'm a pureblood?"

"It doesn't." Blaise took a step back, his hands raised in a gesture of peace. "Doesn't matter at all. I don't care. I was just…saying. Because, you know, Malfoy cares."

Draco rubbed a hand over his forehead. "Don't presume to know what I do and don't care about, Blaise. I certainly don't care who you date—"

"Didn't sound like it before," Blaise cut in.

"—and I certainly don't care _what_ Weasley is since, as I said, we _aren't_ dating."

"Oh, really?" Blaise's dark eyes glittered in the moonlight. He turned to look at Ginny. "So you're out here with him…why? Because he thought I was up to something? Why did that require _your_ presence?"

"Well—because—" Ginny scowled. "Because it's the middle of the night, and it didn't seem like a good idea for him to go by himself! Anyway, if you were up to something, I wanted to know too—"

"Of course you did," Zabini sneered. "Look, just admit it, Draco. You've always thought Weasley was attractive—"

"What?" Draco spluttered. To his horror, he felt his cheeks grow warm. "No, I haven't!"

"Please." Blaise rolled his eyes. "Half the school has fancied her since our fifth year, and you're no exception—"

"Well, neither are you!" Draco retorted, and then froze. Had he just admitted he fancied Weasley? _Did_ he fancy Weasley? She was attractive, sure, that much was obvious, but he didn't _like_ her…

Patil was eyeing Blaise with suspicion . "Is that true? You think Ginny is attractive?"

Blaise coughed. "Well—"

"Okay," Ginny said loudly. Draco shot her a sidelong glance and saw that she had recovered some of the color in her cheeks, though perhaps she was simply blushing. "If we're done talking about who does and doesn't think I'm attractive—and if that's _all_ we're going to talk about, which seems likely, since apparently all we've done is interrupt your snog session—then I am going to go. Back. To the school." And without a glance at Draco, she turned and headed towards the boathouse.

Draco hurried after her. "Weasley, wait—"

She spun around and pinned him with a glare. "Leave me alone, Malfoy. I think you've wasted enough of my time tonight."

"I know, but—"

"We are not friends. You know that, don't you?" She marched towards him. "We are not _anything_." She jabbed him in the chest with a finger. "In fact, I _loathe_ you."

Draco's felt as though something had clamped around his heart. "I'm aware."

"Good. So just—leave me alone." Then she turned her back on him and continued down the path, stomping all the way.

Draco stared after her. After a few seconds, Blaise came into his line of sight, with Patil at his side.

"She's going to need the password," Draco said. His voice was hoarse in the cold air. "To get back in."

"We'll see to it." Blaise looked at him, his face a picture of puzzled amusement. "You'd best hang back for a bit. Doesn't seem like she wants to see you, Draco."

He and Parvati started down the path after Weasley. Draco's gaze shifted from them to her, but she was little more than a speck of flaming red hair in the distance, nearly at the lake's edge. He watched her until she disappeared into the boathouse, Blaise's last words echoing in his head. _Doesn't seem like she wants to see you, Draco._

Why did that bother him so much?


	5. Chapter 5

CHAPTER FIVE

Ginny was halfway through the trapdoor in the boathouse closet when she remembered that she was going to need the password to the Slytherin common room to get back. She climbed down the steps built into the tunnel wall and then stood, stymied, at the end of the passage. She didn't care what it took, she was _not_ going back for Malfoy, no matter what. The last thing she wanted to do was ask that prat for help.

Luckily, she didn't have to, because a minute later, Parvati and Zabini appeared above her. Ginny didn't know what had happened to Draco, but Parvati shut the trapdoor behind her, so apparently he wasn't coming. The two of them didn't say anything to her as they joined her in the passage, for which Ginny was immensely grateful, and they all made it halfway back in complete silence.

Then Ginny said to Parvati, "So. You? And Zabini?"

"Yes." Parvati's voice was a little stiff, but she didn't sound embarrassed. "Is it really so shocking?"

"Well, yes," Ginny admitted. "But not because he's a Slytherin. Just because he's—well—who he is. I mean, he's a bit of a prat, isn't he."

"I heard that, Weasley," Zabini said from up ahead.

"It started last year," Parvati said in a soft voice. "I know that sounds weird, given everything that was going on, but—well, that's _why_ it happened. Because everything was so horrible and Lav—Lavender wasn't here—" Her voice caught. Lavender Brown had been absent last year because she was Muggleborn, and now, she was dead. Killed in the battle of Hogwarts. "And, well. I don't know. I found something to get me through it, and that was Blaise. And I'm not going to make any apologies for it."

"No," Ginny said distantly, "you shouldn't."

There was silence again, for about a minute. Then Parvati said,

"So—you and Draco—you really aren't—"

"No," said Ginny, her voice hard. "And I don't want to talk about him."

Parvati went quiet.

The problem was, it was not so easy to shut her brain off. She felt…tenuous…like there was so very little holding her together, and it was not because of the Binding Spell she'd gotten caught in. Or at least, it wasn't only because of that. It was because, in the wake of it, the only thing that had gotten through her blind terror was Malfoy. Not just because he'd freed her, but _him_ , Draco. His voice had cut through her panic. The touch of his hands on her arms had steadied her, the feel of his chest beneath her hand had grounded her.

And that was so beyond wrong that she didn't know what to do with it.

Things only got worse when they got back to the Slytherin common room, because when Blaise gave the password and the bookcase slid open, Harper was waiting for them on the other side.

"What the hell is this, Zabini?" he demanded, as the three of them emerged from the passageway. He was in his pajamas, flannel bottoms and a Montrose Magpies t-shirt. "Where's Malfoy? He snuck out of the dormitory nearly an hour ago and…what are _they_ doing here?" He pointed at Parvati and Ginny.

Ginny ignored him completely, shooting him a waspish look as she stalked towards the main entrance. Behind her, she heard Zabini heave an exasperated sigh. "Look, I'm dating her, all right? Get over it already."

"Weasley?" Harper sounded confused.

"No, you idiot, Parvati."

"Hi," said Parvati.

"But, what's Weasley doing here?"

"Don't ask, Cole. Seriously. Leave it alone."

Ginny reached the stretch of wall that was the entrance to the common room and stopped, staring at it. She had just realized she had no idea how to open it. Defeated, she kicked at the wall.

"It's the sconce, Weasley," Zabini said helpfully. "Just pull it."

Ginny yanked at the sconce on the wall beside her, and the door slid open. Without a backward glance, she stomped out into the corridor, back towards her own common room.

She had no idea what time it was when she finally reached Gryffindor Tower. She hadn't even cast another Disillusionment Charm on herself as she'd traversed the dungeons, the entrance hall, and the stairs, but she hadn't encountered a single soul along the way, not even Filch. She wasn't sure what she would have done if she _had_ seen someone. She wasn't in the mood for confrontation and she didn't have the patience to lie her way out of anything.

"My, aren't we out late," said the Fat Lady, as Ginny stood below the portrait. "Do you have any idea what time it is?"

"Well, what are you doing awake, then?" Ginny demanded.

"I'm a portrait," the Fat Lady sniffed. "I can stay up as late as I want."

Ginny stared at her in utter frustration. Her annoyance was not really with the Fat Lady, of course, but with everything else, Malfoy, Zabini, the whole night. She realized she was never going to be able to sleep, not like this, and so, without another word, she turned and walked away.

"Hang on!" the Fat Lady called after her. "Where are you going? It's after midnight, you know!"

Ginny didn't care. She stalked down the corridor and started down the staircase at the end, thinking maybe she'd go to the kitchens and get a snack—she couldn't think what else to do—but halfway down, the staircase shifted and began to move, swinging over to another landing that opened onto the fourth floor. It was a part of the castle Ginny didn't know very well, and with a huff, she took the next staircase she came across, not paying any attention to where she was going.

The castle was dark and quiet around her. Ginny was not afraid of the dark, but she felt quite alone in the silence, as though there was no one else in the castle. She hugged her arms around herself and suddenly realized she was going _up_ the stairs, not down towards the kitchens. But she kept walking.

She thought back to the Binding Spell she had gotten caught in, the netting Blaise had left behind, and shivered. She couldn't believe how quickly she had panicked, but the terror that had taken over her at the feel of that net had utterly consumed her.

It was because of last year. Last year, when she'd been caught sneaking into Snape's office—for the second time. The first time, she'd been with Neville and Luna, and they had all gotten detention with Hagrid in the Forbidden Forest—which hadn't been so bad. Nothing could be so bad with Hagrid around. But the second time, she'd been by herself. She hadn't planned it—the opportunity had just presented itself—which was why she'd been alone.

But she'd been caught, by Alecto Carrow, no less, and the Death Eater had decided to punish her by taking her into the Forbidden Forest alone. No Hagrid, no Fang, no Neville or Luna to accompany her. And this time, Alecto had trapped her with a Binding Spell and left her trussed up in a tree all night. And all night long she'd hung there, unable to move, listening to all the horrors that haunted, stalked, and slithered through the Forbidden Forest at night, wondering what was going to find her and what it was going to do to her…

It was a miracle she had survived. And the nightmares that had haunted her ever since were relentless. Worse than the dreams she had of Harper and the Cruciatus Curse.

That was why she'd panicked so thoroughly when she'd been trapped in that net tonight. And even once she was free, she hadn't been able to pull out of that overwhelming fear. It was Malfoy that had finally reached her, his firm grip on her arms comforting, the feel of him beneath her steadying…

But it was Malfoy. _Malfoy._

She looked up suddenly and realized where she was. The seventh floor. A little ways down was the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy and opposite of it, the blank stretch of wall that concealed the Room of Requirement. Ginny wandered down, stared at the wall for a moment, and then closed her eyes.

She asked the room to become the Slytherin common room. The same room Draco had taken her to when they'd met with the other Slytherins. He'd said she would be able to get back in on her own, but not with any others who weren't Slytherin. Those must have been the parameters they'd set for the room.

A mahogany door formed in the wall, and Ginny walked inside.

The room was just as it had been before, with its green wall hangings, cushions, and rugs, its dark wood bookcases and desks, its cushy sofas and armchairs. Only this time, it was empty. There were no other students in there, Slytherin or otherwise, no one at all, except for Ginny.

She stepped down into the room until she reached the large, ornate coffee table in its center. She'd just been in the real Slytherin common room, and she'd hardly paid attention to it. It looked very similar to this room, except that its windows had looked out into the bottle green depths of the lake. Which was quite creepy, really.

Ginny gazed around this room now, and tried to convince herself of the wrongness of it. She tried to tell herself that the dark furnishings were macabre and sinister, she tried to see the green-and-silver decor and recall a sense of displeasure, a knee-jerk feeling that she'd lost somewhere in the past several weeks.

The truth was, the dim lighting and black leather sofas did not put her off as they once might have. The truth was, she couldn't help but feel that the atmosphere was rather snug and cozy, and something about the way it closed in around her made her feel protected and safe.

She felt, suddenly, that all the anger and panic of the night had drained out of her, leaving only exhaustion in its wake.

She curled up on the sofa before her and went to sleep.

Exhausted though she was, her sleep was fitful. Her dreams were dark, full of torture and fear, the pain of the Cruciatus Curse, the terror of being left in the Forbidden Forest, trussed up and helpless. And at the end of it all, she saw Harper. Only, his face wasn't cruel and sneering like it usually was in her dreams. Instead, he was crying, the frightened tears of a child, just as helpless as Ginny was.

When she woke in the darkness, she was the one who was crying. The leather arm of the sofa, pillowed beneath her, was damp with her tears.

Then she realized someone was sitting beside her on the sofa.

In an instant, Ginny whipped her wand out from her sleeve and pounced, pinning the intruder to the other side of the sofa.

"Merlin, Weasley, it's me," said Malfoy hoarsely.

It was Malfoy. His pale blond hair shone in the darkness, and his face was appropriately anxious, given that Ginny had him restrained against the arm of the sofa, her wand thrust beneath his chin. All the lamps and candles around her had gone out, all save the one near the door, but even still, the fear on Malfoy's face was clear to see.

"Are you scared of me, Malfoy?" she said in a low voice. "Scared what I'm going to do to you?"

"Right now? Yeah." Malfoy swallowed visibly. "Yeah, I am."

"What the hell are you doing here?"

"I could ask you the same thing." Malfoy seemed to be taking a lot of care not to move. "This room was meant to be a sanctuary for Slytherins. You're not Slytherin."

"Why were you watching me?" she snapped. "Just now. You were sitting there, watching me sleep—"

"I wasn't," Draco protested. "I was going to wake you—you looked like you were having a nightmare—"

"Oh, so you were concerned about me, were you?"

Malfoy's gray eyes were dark like a storm. "Maybe I was. Is that so hard to believe?"

A sliver of unease twitched through Ginny. She suddenly realized how familiar this felt—here she was, practically sitting on top of Malfoy, their faces only inches from each other. The atmosphere seemed different now, because of the fearful tension hanging between them, and yet it was not so different at all. Ginny's free hand clutched at Malfoy's shoulder, and just like before, he was warm, and solid, and she should have been repulsed to touch him, but she wasn't.

She jerked back at once, letting him go and scooting away. But she kept her wand trained on him as she said, "Is that hard to believe? Yes, Malfoy, it is. And do you know why? Because we are not friends. I told you, we're not friends, not anything—" This was suddenly important, so, so important—

"We don't have to be friends, Weasley," Malfoy groused. "I'm not saying we are or that we should be. I'm only trying to make you see that, maybe, just maybe, I'm a decent person!"

"But you're not, Malfoy. You're _not_." She heard how she sounded, so vicious, like him, but she couldn't help it. "Do you want to know why Harry and I broke up? The real reason? It was because of _you_ , Malfoy."

Draco blinked, all the indignation gone from his face. He looked quite off-kilter. "What… _me?_ "

"Yes." And she felt like she had forgotten this, and how could she have forgotten this? She'd told herself, when she agreed to help the Slytherins, that she _wasn't_ doing what Harry had done. Harry had stepped up for _Malfoy_ , and it was this that Ginny could not condone. It was this that Ginny could not forgive, not after everything Malfoy had done, and Harry thought he knew, but he _didn't_. Because Seamus was right—Harry _hadn't been here_. He didn't know, he didn't understand, he could never understand.

And yet, in these past few weeks, what had Ginny done? She had let Malfoy in. She had even…softened…towards him. They had not become friends, not even close, but that she'd even agreed to go with him to follow Blaise—that spoke to how far she'd slipped. She'd allowed herself to humanize the Slytherins, and she knew now, that that was right. But that didn't mean she needed to humanize Malfoy. She _shouldn't_ humanize Malfoy.

"Harry spoke for you," Ginny spat. "He vouched for you, explained away everything you'd done to the Ministry, and I—I was not okay with that. I'm _not_ okay with that. Because I don't believe it, Malfoy. I don't believe you and your family deserve to go free, I don't believe you deserve to escape the consequences of what you've done, _everything_ you've done—!"

"I know!" Malfoy burst out. "I know, don't you get it?"

Ginny broke off, near breathless after her tirade. She stared at Malfoy in amazement.

"I know everything I've done." Draco's voice was strangled, like there was something caught in his throat. He sounded very unlike himself. "And you're _right_ , Weasley. You don't have to tell me. Me, my father…we've gotten far better than we deserve. I told you, didn't I?" He laughed, a sad, hysterical little laugh. "That's why I left home. Because my dad clearly had no remorse for what he'd done, and I couldn't stand it, because I have _loads_ of it, and if he wasn't going to have any then that meant I had to carry his share too—"

Ginny clenched her jaw. A part of her wanted to dismiss this as a plea for sympathy, but the shattered look in his eyes and the quivering mess of his voice—she didn't think a person could fake that. Not even Malfoy.

"But everything that _happened_ —" Malfoy made an odd, choking sound. "It haunts me everyday, Weasley. That's why I came back to school. It wasn't just my dad, it was _this_ , this—this—" He gestured at himself, as though to indicate all the guilt and shame he bore. "I didn't know what to do with it. And I couldn't run from it, but I tried. I came here. Just for some way to distract myself, because all I could do at home was sit around in that big house and remember when Voldemort was there and think about all the terrible things I did for him—t-torturing whoever he wanted me to, trying to kill Dumbledore, _Merlin_ , I almost killed Katie Bell and your brother and I let Death Eaters into the school, and it's all on _me_ , them, Dumbledore, Snape, all of it—"

" _Malfoy_." Ginny broke in before she knew what she was doing. " _Stop_."

He did stop. He heaved in a huge, huge breath, but his face was as gray as a ghost.

"Look, you can't take credit for all that." Her voice was hard, unsympathetic. "For Snape, and even for Dumbledore…Voldemort wanted Dumbledore dead, and if he hadn't asked you to do it, then he would have asked someone else."

Malfoy gawked at her with bloodshot eyes. "Are you…trying to make me feel better?"

"No," Ginny said crossly. She was not. She just couldn't bear to listen to him anymore. It was too disturbing because…because he sounded like he actually meant it all. And also— "I'm just saying. Taking on guilt about things that weren't entirely in your control…well, now you're just feeling sorry for yourself. Making it all about _you_ , as usual."

Draco laughed again, a pitiful, thin sound. "Is that what I'm doing?" He rubbed his hands over his face. "I don't know, Weasley. Maybe I am. But I don't know how to _do_ this. I don't know _what_ to do with it, I don't know where it starts and where it ends…"

Ginny realized she'd lowered her wand, leaving it sagging in her lap, and now she tucked it away and rose to her feet. "Look, Malfoy—" She raked a hand through her long hair, her fingers tangling in its snarls. "What do you want me to say? That I'm sorry you feel this way? I'm not. Frankly, you _should_ feel this way. If you really mean it and you feel guilty for everything you've done…well, _good_."

Malfoy did not look as though he had even heard her. He sat upright against the back of the sofa, but as she watched, he began to slump. One hand covered his eyes, and as his shoulders began to shake, she realized he was _crying_.

"Do you know what the worst part is?" he asked thickly. "Sometimes, I look back at it all… and I'm not sure where I went wrong. I mean, sometimes I don't know what else I could have _done_ , Weasley. I know right from wrong—despite what my father taught me—but none of it was ever that easy. I'm like Harper, I was scared, I was—I _am_ —" He drew in a low breath, or tried to, but a sob broke through. "A coward. I'm a coward. And even if I was faced with the same choices today…I don't know that I could do anything different. I'd like to think that I could, but that's a child's dream. Because I know what I am now."

Ginny's heart felt leaden. She clutched at the ends of her jumper, and she didn't know what she was feeling, welling up inside her, but it was too much.

Draco shuddered, another sob racking his body. "How do I live with that?" he choked. "How do I—live like that? How do I do it every day, how do I just…keep going—"

That was when Ginny knew. His words fell into place inside her like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. Because she knew that, she had felt that. Not feeling like a coward, but his words, those words… _How do I live like that? How do I do it every day?_

She had been asking herself those same questions ever since Fred died.

And she recognized that feeling now, welling up inside her. It was her own grief, so keenly echoed by Draco. She felt sick with it. Because her brother was _gone_ , but it was so easy, here at school, to pretend it wasn't true. That he was still out there, he was at the shop with George, and she would see him again when she went home for the summer—

A tear, hot and unwanted, spilled down Ginny's cheek. Fred wasn't there. He wasn't anywhere. She would never see him again, and sometimes, she didn't know how she lived from one second to the next, knowing that.

She moved then, and half of her didn't know what she was doing, but half of her did, and it wasn't wrong. It didn't feel wrong. She lowered herself down onto the sofa, right next to Malfoy, right up against him.

His sob stuttered in his throat, and he dropped his hand from his face. "What—"

"Shut up, Malfoy," she said, and she hugged him.

She hugged him. She turned towards him, and wrapped her arm around his shoulder, and the other around his middle, and she lay her head on his chest, and she held him. She could hear his heart beating beneath her, and he was trembling like a leaf. But he was also warm, and he was there, and she wasn't sure where it coming from, this comfort, this solace. But it was here, with him, and she wondered if he felt it too.

"I don't know how you live with it," she told him, her words muffled by his shirt. "I think…you just keep doing it. Today, and every day, and then maybe…one day…it isn't so hard anymore."

Draco had gone still and tense, but at these words, he relaxed. His shoulders sagged, and he let out another shuddering sob, and he wrapped his arms around Ginny too. And they sat there, in the darkness, in the silence, and held each other, and cried.

* * *

Ginny woke with a stiff neck. The reason for this was quite apparent, as she had fallen asleep sitting up, her neck dangling onto the arm of a sofa. Stifling a groan, she lifted her head, reaching back to rub at the strained muscles. That was when she became aware of a weight pressed against her, and she looked down—

Draco Malfoy. Was sleeping beside her. With his head in her lap.

The events of the night before rushed back to her—Malfoy spilling his guts to her, his crying, the way they'd held each other until they'd fallen asleep. Ginny shot up straight. She regretted this at once, as Malfoy shifted and mumbled in his sleep. She went still, holding her breath. She wondered if it was possible to get up without waking him, maybe if she just—very carefully eased back—

The door to the room flew open with a _bang!_ Ginny choked on a gasp and, in an instant, Draco flew upright, looking around wildly.

"'S going on?" he asked sleepily. "Where…" He looked to the door. "Goyle?"

The door slammed shut, and it was indeed Gregory Goyle who stepped into the room. He looked between Ginny and Draco, and his eyes narrowed. "What're you two doing here?" he asked.

"What?" Malfoy ran a hand over his hair—which was a good idea, since a piece of it was sticking up. He looked around—again—and this time, his gaze landed on Ginny. "Weasley!"

Ginny cleared her throat. "Malfoy."

She watched it go through his eyes, the same way it had gone through her when she woke. His brow furrowed in confusion—just for a second—and then his eyes widened. As he remembered. He lurched to his feet, spinning away from her. "What are you doing here, Goyle?"

"Hiding," Goyle said, without a trace of embarrassment. "But what're _you_ doing here? And with Weasley?"

"I—we—" Draco coughed. He did not look back at Ginny.

"Did you say you were hiding?" Ginny frowned. "Hiding from who?"

Goyle scowled. "A couple of Hufflepuff duds—trying to hex me. I came straight here to get away."

Ginny considered pointing out that calling the Hufflepuffs "duds" was not really any better than others calling the Slytherins evil, but then, if they were trying to hex another student without provocation, perhaps they deserved the insult. "You know," she said, getting to her feet, "I've been at this for about a month now, defending you lot, and I know my actions haven't gone unnoticed. I'd rather hoped most of this would've died down by now, but it hasn't, has it?"

"Well," said Draco, and he startled Ginny by looking at her—straight at her. "You can't expect everyone to change over night, can you?"

Ginny met his gaze—though it was difficult, she met it, and she held it. "No," she admitted, "but I can expect them to at least try."

"You never did say what you're both doing in here." Goyle looked between the two of them, puzzled.

"Malfoy will explain," Ginny said lightly. "I'm starving. Hopefully I haven't missed breakfast."

The look Draco turned on her was indignant. Ginny only smiled, first at him, and then at Goyle—and then she left the room, leaving Malfoy to come up with whatever explanation he could.

Ginny did not see Malfoy much over the next few weeks, even though they both stayed at Hogwarts over the Christmas holiday. Hermione had worried that Ginny was trying to avoid Harry by staying, but Ginny had assured her that was not the case. Truthfully, she wanted to stay in obligation to those Slytherins who were also staying, which had turned out to be quite a few of them.

Once school was back in session, much of Ginny's time was focused on Quidditch. They were playing Ravenclaw in just a few weeks, and Ginny was determined they not lose a second match. She had the team up early to train on many a morning, and it was on one of these mornings that Ginny left the changing rooms to find Seamus Finnegan waiting for her.

At first, Ginny thought Seamus was waiting for Dean (who was on the team, while Seamus was not). But then she realized that both Dean and Seamus were staring at her, Dean standing awkwardly to the side. "Dean? Seamus? What's up?" Ginny asked, winding her hair back behind her shoulder.

Seamus hesitated. He glanced at Dean, who gave an encouraging nod. "The thing is, Ginny…I wanted to talk to you," Seamus said.

"All right." Ginny flexed her cold fingers. "What about? Shall we head up to the castle for some—"

"No," Seamus said quickly. He cast a furtive glance at Demelza Robins and Ritchie Cootes as they emerged from the changing rooms and started towards the castle. "I mean—it's sort of private."

Ginny looked questioningly at Dean, but he only spared her a discomfited smile. Casting a quick glance around to be sure no one else was nearby, Ginny turned back to Seamus and said, "Is this about Malfoy?"

"What?" Seamus looked astonished, his face going white. "I…what do you mean?"

"Seamus, mate," Dean said, his tone a little reproving.

Seamus tugged at the collar of his hoodie. He wouldn't meet Ginny's eye. "You know?"

"That you were one of the ones who beat up Malfoy out here, after the Quidditch match last term?" Ginny raised an eyebrow. "I didn't know for sure."

"It was dark," Seamus mumbled. "I didn't think you saw me—"

"I didn't, but I recognized your voice when you deflected my Body-Bind Curse." Ginny shouldered her bag. "Come on. Let's sit over there." She started towards the stands.

"You want me to go?" Dean asked Seamus.

"No," Seamus said miserably. "You can come with."

The three of them found a seat together low on the stands. It was a dreadfully frigid morning, the wind occasional but icy, the grass below them frosted with dew. Ginny clasped her gloved hands together and turned to Seamus, seated beside her. "So. You didn't beat up Malfoy by yourself. Who else was with you?" She looked at Dean, on the other side of Seamus. "It wasn't you? Parvati said you'd already gone back to the common room."

Dean shook his head.

"No." Seamus hunched in on himself. "He's not as dumb as I am. It was Zacharias Smith."

Ginny swore.

"I know," Seamus said glumly. "It was his idea."

"Seamus." Ginny could not contain the exasperation in her voice. "Any idea that Zacharias Smith comes up with is not a good one. Please tell me you know that."

"I know, Ginny." To his credit, Seamus sounded quite aggrieved. "Normally I'd never listen to that tosser, but…he got to me. You know Malfoy tortured us both last year, with the Cruciatus Curse…and I was so rattled when he came back here, and Smith and I both got to talking about it…" He rubbed his hands together. "But afterwards…especially when I realized you'd almost seen us…I felt rotten, Gin. I thought I'd feel better, hurting Malfoy like he hurt us, but…I realized I was as bad as he was. Worse, even, because no one told me to do it, whereas Malfoy—"

"—whereas Malfoy was only doing what Carrow told him to do," Ginny finished.

Seamus' mouth twisted bitterly. For a moment, Ginny thought he was going to argue that point with her, but if wanted to, he held back.

"Look," Ginny said, "I'm sorry you feel bad about what you did—or, well, no, I'm not, because frankly I'd be worried if you _didn't_ feel bad over it. But…why're you telling me this now?"

Dean shrugged. "He just needed to get it off his chest, Gin."

"He's obviously already told you," Ginny pointed out.

"Yeah, but…" Seamus looked up. "Look, we've all noticed what you've been doing, Ginny—with the Slytherins, I mean. Sticking up for them, hanging around them…and I just wondered…I just thought…I don't know." He rubbed a hand over his eye. "I just don't know what to _do_."

Ginny looked at him and suddenly understood. How he felt. He was just like she'd been—full of wrath, and nowhere for it go. He'd tried directing it at Malfoy, only that hadn't worked. And he was desperate for another answer, another way.

She said, "Have you considered just apologizing to Malfoy?"

Seamus looked aghast. "Do _what?_ "

"It would be the most direct way to make amends," Ginny pointed out.

"Yeah, but…" Seamus grimaced. "I don't know if I could, Ginny. I know I shouldn't have done what I did, but even so…I'm not sure Malfoy deserves an apology."

"But what does that matter?" she said impatiently. "That's not what an apology is about. You wronged him, you know that, and you feel bad about it. That's all you need to apologize to someone. It doesn't matter what he deserves." She stood up, pushing her hair out of her face as a gust of wind blustered past. "We can't think that way about the Slytherins. Deciding who deserves what…we don't know enough to make that call. I mean, they're not all the same, are they?"

"Sure seems like it," Seamus muttered.

"But they're not," Ginny said sharply. She thought of Astoria Greengrass, who'd wanted to fight, and Tracey Davis, the Muggleborn. "None of us are like that. Look at Zacharias Smith, he's Hufflepuff, but is he anywhere near the person Cedric Diggory was? Look at Peter Pettigrew. He was in Gryffindor, but he was still a coward that betrayed his friends to Voldemort."

Dean nodded gravely, and even Seamus looked abashed. "Is that why you're helping them?" he asked.

"I'm helping them because they need it," Ginny answered. She was struck by the truth of her own words, struck by how much she meant them. She hadn't been sure, when they'd asked for her help. She'd given it reluctantly. But she knew now, looking at Seamus. Lashing out at the Slytherins wasn't doing anyone any good. And it made her heart ache, to think how long it had taken her to see this.

They were all hurting. And none of them knew how to get past it.

"I'm helping them because they're students, just like us," she continued. "Hogwarts is their home as much as ours, and right now, they're not safe in it."

"Neither were we last year," Seamus pointed out.

"They weren't any safer than us," Ginny shot back. "Don't you see? They were living in the same hell we were." These words didn't feel as though they'd come from her, and it was a second before she realized this was what Harper had said, back in the Room of Requirement. "They were faced with the same dangers, the same choices—"

"And they chose wrong!" Seamus burst out. "They didn't fight back like we did! They did whatever they were told, just to survive!"

Ginny look at him. He looked so fragile—afire with anger, but that anger was tentative, ready to break. Some part of him knew it was wrong, she thought. But letting go still seemed too hard. She understood.

"Is that such a bad thing?" she asked him. "That they did what they had to, to survive? Is it fair to ask any more of them?"

Even Dean looked dumbstruck by this. "We did more—" Seamus started.

"So what?" Ginny demanded. "They were still victims, Seamus. They weren't strong enough to fight back like we did, but that doesn't mean they don't have their own strengths! That doesn't make them evil, it just makes them _survivors_. And that's what we are, too. We survived. We survived the battle of Hogwarts. You, Dean, you survived being on the run and being captured, and Seamus, you survived torture and hiding out here, and the Slytherins—they survived too. As best they could."

Seamus' chin was trembling. Ginny saw him clench his jaw tight against it.

"We're all survivors," Ginny said. "Us and the Slytherins. And now we have to learn how to survive together. Because this, what everyone is doing now, bullying the Slytherins—it's hurting all of us. Not just them."

* * *

The next Hogsmeade weekend was upon them within a couple of weeks, and Ginny surprised Hermione by telling her that she wasn't going.

"What?" Hermione looked shocked as she wrapped her scarf around her neck. They were out on the grounds, a little ways down from the courtyard. It was bitterly cold out, and Hermione was dressed warmly in a thick coat, scarf, gloves, and a snug hat. Ginny was dressed less so, because she intended to head back to the castle.

"But, Ginny, Ron and Harry are going to meet us there!" Hermione protested now. "Surely you want to see them?"

"I do—but—"

"Or you want to see Ron," Hermione said astutely, "but not Harry?"

Ginny flinched.

"Look, you can't tell me this is about the Slytherins this time," Hermione said sagely. Her expression was not unkind—indeed, it was a little too forgiving. "Because most of them will _be_ in Hogsmeade—along with everyone else."

"I know."

"So this is about Harry, then? You don't want to see him?" Hermione shook her head. "Ginny, you haven't spoken to him in almost six months. Are you—I mean—" She hesitated. "Look, I would've thought, after everything you've been doing for the Slytherins—I mean—are you still mad about Malfoy?"

Ginny looked at her gravely and really considered that question. "No," she said, and it was true, though hard to admit aloud. Just as with Seamus, letting go of that wasn't easy—because it meant admitting other, rather harder, truths. "But… Hermione, I'm not sure it was ever really about Malfoy. I mean, yes, I was angry, Harry saying that he'd changed…but…" She stuffed her hands into the pockets of her jumper. "But that was just an excuse. Because really…I've been angry that Harry wasn't _here_."

"Last year, you mean?" Hermione's eyes were full with concern and confusion.

"Yes. Last year. When everything was so horrible here. When we were left to fight the Carrows—"

"But, Ginny, I mean…" Hermione looked lost for words. "Look, I know it was awful, but—we had to find the Horcruxes, we had to—"

"I know," Ginny was quick to interrupt. And she did know that, but… "Look, I'm not saying it's logical. It's _not_ , because logically, I know he was doing what he had to, to defeat Voldemort…" Ginny bit her lip. "But it was _hell_ , Hermione. They took Hogwarts, and they made it _theirs_ , and…it's not that I blame him, exactly. It's just…I need to focus on _me_ right now, on getting past it."

Hermione sighed, but it was a knowing sigh—one that said she understood, even if she didn't want to. But she said, hopefully, "And you don't think Harry could help you with that?"

"I don't know," Ginny said honestly. "But I know I don't _want_ his help with it. I…I need to be without him. At least for now."

So, reluctantly, Hermione left, but not first without a hug for Ginny, which Ginny appreciated. She knew that Hermione was Harry's friend—really, Harry's friend, and not Ginny's. Or at least, Harry's friend first. And Ginny had half-worried that Hermione would not approve, or would try to convince her she was wrong—but then, Hermione was not _always_ a know-it-all, Ginny reflected with a smile. She knew when to just be a friend.

Ginny shivered as she trudged back up the hill to the castle. She had no gloves, and no scarf either, and now she wished she'd brought one, even just to tell Hermione she was staying behind. She zipped her jumper all the way up to her chin and quickened her pace.

She really wasn't angry at Harry anymore. She knew this now. She _had_ been angry, and for exactly the reason she'd told Hermione—because he hadn't been here. And it was not so much that she thought he should've been here—it was just that he had not been. And now, she didn't think he could possibly understand what she was going through.

That probably wasn't fair, she thought. It wasn't as though Harry, Ron, and Hermione had been off on holiday while the rest of them were suffering; they had been through their own trials. And perhaps she was not giving Harry enough credit, thinking he couldn't understand. But she could not ignore the fact that the three of them had gone off together, like they always did, and left Ginny behind. Being with Harry didn't ease the unspeakable loneliness this brought on for Ginny—that it was the three of them, always the three of them. She had never had that, not in all her time at Hogwarts, and now—it just felt like she had to deal with the repercussions of last year alone. Or at least, without the three of them, and only with those people who had been here, like—

Malfoy.

Ginny stopped in her tracks, peering up ahead. Malfoy was there. He was sitting in the near-deserted courtyard, by himself, leaning against a pillar and staring down towards the frozen lake. Unlike her, he was dressed quite warmly, in a fancy coat and dragon-hide gloves, with a green Slytherin scarf and a hat. She supposed he was going to Hogsmeade too, although, he was just sitting there, and everyone else had gone.

Ginny dithered, watching him. She should just go back to Gryffindor Tower—she had an essay to write for Charms, not to mention exams in Muggle Studies and Transfiguration to study for. Schoolwork was getting devilishly difficult now that their N.E.W.T.s were approaching, and Ginny didn't want to fall behind.

And yet—and yet.

She could not help but wonder why Malfoy was not going to Hogsmeade. And that's all it was, she told herself, as she started towards him. She was just curious.


	6. Chapter 6

**Author's Note:** This is the final chapter! I hope you have enjoyed this story. I will probably have a post up on my fic journal within the new few days, about what writing this fic was like for me and whether or not I have any plans to do anything else in this fic universe. So if you're interested in any of that, you can look me up at livejournal under the journal name/username **rainywinters.**

* * *

CHAPTER SIX

Draco flexed his gloved hands and wondered if he should go back inside. He was tired of being cooped up in the castle—he always got tired of being cooped up during the winter. So even though it was positively frosty outside, he'd decided to wrap up as warmly as he could and go sit in the courtyard to work on his homework. It was probably too windy to work on his essays without making a mess, but he had two exams to study for, including Transfiguration, which he was having trouble with.

But he'd been sitting outside for ten minutes now, and he hadn't even touched his schoolbag, which lay beside him. It was not the weather that bothered him, really. He actually kind of liked it, the bracing cold; it seemed to help clear his head. And there was a lot going on in his head these days.

He'd come back to Hogwarts with the idea that it might distract him, just like he'd told Weasley. And maybe—just maybe—he'd thought he could have a fresh start. Even while he craved the normalcy of Hogwarts, he'd wanted to do things differently, he wanted to _be_ different. He'd wanted to see if he could be better. And the funny thing was, he thought he _was_ better—but it didn't feel like it mattered.

Well, of course it mattered. It certainly mattered to the people he'd tormented before. But it didn't _help_ ; it hadn't helped him. It hadn't stopped him thinking over all the terrible things he'd done; it hadn't eased the guilt. Not one bit.

He just wanted to get on with his life. But he was beginning to think that would never happen.

"Hullo, Draco."

Still lost in these gloomy thoughts, Draco looked around. "Hi—Weasley!" He shifted around quickly, nearly knocking his schoolbag to the ground. "What're you doing here? Why aren't you in Hogsmeade?"

Ginny Weasley stared at him, one eyebrow raised in amusement. "I could ask you the same thing."

It took Draco a moment to come up with a response to this, and it was a rather childish one at that. "I asked you first."

She smiled, and Draco found himself so distracted by the sight that he nearly missed her answer. "All right, then. I didn't want to go to Hogsmeade. Hermione and I were supposed to meet up with Ron and Harry, and…I didn't want to."

Draco wasn't sure what to say about that. He remembered what she'd said about her breaking up with Potter because of him, and he wondered if he should feel guilty for that too. "Still on the outs with Potter, then?"

Ginny looked vaguely uncomfortable, but when she spoke, he realized it wasn't because of him. She just seemed unsure in her answer. "I suppose. I told Hermione I needed some time, but…I don't know if we'll ever get back together. I don't know if I want that." She smiled again, but it seemed forced this time. "Besides, Daphne is probably asking him out as we speak."

"Doesn't mean he'll say yes," Draco said, watching her closely.

"Well, it doesn't matter to me," and she sounded like she meant it. Though maybe she was just good at pretending. "Anyway. So why aren't you in Hogsmeade?"

Draco decided to be frank with her, and found it was not difficult. "I'm not allowed to go. There were a few conditions on my coming back to school, and that was one of them. Since, you know…" He swallowed. "I've gotten into trouble at Hogsmeade before." Which was a rather oblique way of saying he'd given a girl a cursed necklace in Hogsmeade, cast the Imperius Curse on her, and told her to give it to Dumbledore. To kill him.

"Oh." Ginny looked surprised for a moment, but the look that followed in her eyes was thoughtful, not condemning. "Makes sense, I guess. Well…that's too bad."

Draco goggled. Too bad? Did she just say that was _too bad?_

"That you can't go, I mean," she added, sounding flustered. Maybe because Draco was still staring at her.

"Yeah, well." He swung his legs over the side of the courtyard bench, gathering the strap on his schoolbag in one hand. "It's no big deal. I don't miss it." Which was true. Missing out on Honeydukes and Zonko's and the Three Broomsticks seemed like silly concerns…though a warm butterbeer sounded nice right about now. "Though, it would certainly be a nice distraction."

Those last words were out of his mouth before he knew what he was saying, and then he silently cursed himself for saying that—for hearkening back to that night in the Room of Requirement, when he'd spilled his guts and told her everything, why he'd come back and how he felt. He hadn't spoken to her since then—until now—truthfully, because he was a bit embarrassed about it.

But when he dared a look at her now—and saw her eyes on him, full of grim understanding—Draco found he was not ashamed, but rather comforted. Weirdly.

He cleared his throat. "Anyway. I have a load of homework to do, so I thought I'd work on that instead. We both have that Transfiguration exam—"

"Yeah, we do." Ginny had an odd gleam in her eye—a look that Draco was a little wary of. "I have a better way to spend the afternoon, though. If you're looking for a distraction."

* * *

Ten minutes later, they were out on the Quidditch pitch, hauling necessary supplies out of the cupboards near the changing rooms—a box containing a Quaffle and a Snitch (and a Bludger, but Draco assumed they weren't going to use that—he hoped not anyway), as well as a couple of school brooms. Draco eyed his distastefully.

"Don't be such a snob, Malfoy," Ginny said loftily, noting his expression. "They replaced all the school brooms a couple years ago with the latest Cleansweep models, they're not so bad. Anyway, this way we'll be on even footing—" Her eyes held a challenging glint "—so if, by some miracle, you beat me, I can't claim it was because of your fancy broomstick. Doesn't that work better for you?"

He supposed it did. Draco decided not to answer, anyway. The fact was, he had not brought his "fancy broomstick," to school this year. He'd figured Harper would never let him onto the team, so bringing it had seemed like an ugly reminder of the friends he didn't have anymore.

"Beat you how?" he said suddenly, latching onto something else Weasley had said. "We can't play Quidditch with only two people."

Ginny crouched down to open the trunk. "No, but after we throw the Quaffle around a little, I thought we could let the Snitch out and see who catches it first."

Despite himself, Draco felt a grin coming over his face. "Oh, you are so on, Weasley. After all, _I'm_ a Seeker, you're not. It'll be no contest."

"We'll see about that, Malfoy."

As she took out the Quaffle, Draco removed his overcoat and gloves; his coat was too long and thick to play in properly. He watched as Weasley swept her hair away from her neck to tie it back, and as she did, she shivered. She was only wearing a jumper and a beanie hat.

"Aren't you going to be a bit cold, flying in this weather?" Draco said. He felt a bit silly asking this—because he was showing concern for Weasley. "You don't even have a scarf."

Ginny gave him an odd look. Probably because, well, he was showing concern for her. "I'm fine, Malfoy."

"Here." He was moving before he could rethink what he was doing. "Take mine." He began to unwind his scarf from around his neck.

"What? No, I told you, I'm fine, and—anyway, then you'll be cold—"

"I'm wearing three layers under this fleece, Weasley," he said, a touch impatiently. He'd felt weird enough offering; if she wasn't going to take his damn scarf, he'd feel really stupid. "I'm plenty warm. Just take it." He held the scarf out, feeling oddly anxious about it.

Weasley eyed it for a touch too long. Draco was just about to drop the whole thing when she finally took it from him, her movement tentative.

"Thanks," she said quietly, as she wrapped it snugly around her neck.

Draco could not help but notice how pretty the green looked against her red hair. Feeling even stupider for noticing such a thing, he said, "It's just a scarf, Weasley, I didn't save your bloody life."

She rolled her eyes at him. "Come on, let's get up in the air before I change my mind."

They kicked off together on their Cleansweeps. Weasley left the Quaffle behind so they could just fly and warm up for a bit, and as Draco soared into the air, he forgot that he was flying on a second-rate broom. He forgot everything, because that feeling, as the ground became small below him, as the wintry wind blasted through him, as he rose up and up, so close to the clouds—that feeling was the most wonderful thing in the world. Draco felt like he'd left everything behind on the ground, all the drama at school with the Slytherins, all the bad memories from last year, all the guilt he couldn't shake. Up here, he was just Draco, and he was completely free.

They flew around a bit, and then Ginny retrieved the Quaffle. They had fun just passing it between each other for a while, attempting more daring throws and catches each time, and then they took turns playing Keeper while the other tried to score. Weasley was way better at scoring than he was, but Draco wasn't worried about that, because he was going to wipe the floor with her when it came to catching the Snitch.

And he did. When she finally let it out, they both flew over the pitch for a few minutes, scouting for the winged Snitch, but it was Draco who saw it first, hovering near the bottom of the stands. He launched himself into a dive, and Weasley followed suit, but she couldn't catch him in time. The Snitch was his.

"What did I tell you, Weasley?" he said smugly, the struggling Snitch clasped in his hand. To his delight, Weasley actually looked dismayed.

"All right, then." She adjusted his scarf around her neck. "Two out of three?"

"You like losing that much?"

"Scared you can't keep up, Malfoy?"

He'd laughed then—actually laughed, and it felt strange and good at the same time. He let the Snitch go, and they went for it again, twice more. Weasley did catch it the second time, but the third time, he won again, shooting high into the air to catch it, where it was zipping back and forth way above them.

"What was that," Draco said, as they flew down to the ground, "about not being able to claim that I won because I had the better broomstick?"

The smile playing at Weasley's lips was both rueful and impish. "How do you know I didn't let you win, Malfoy? Maybe I felt sorry for you."

"You didn't," he insisted, as his feet touched the ground and he climbed off his broom, but a low, swooping feeling rushed through him. It was not a nice feeling. _Maybe I felt sorry for you_. "Or…is that the only reason you're here?"

Ginny furrowed her brow as she climbed off her broom and held it upright. "What are you talking about?"

Draco gestured at the pitch around them. A heavy, familiar cloud was threatening to overtake the high the flying had given him—a dark cloud of misery. "Is that why you asked me to come out here? Because…you felt sorry for me?" He did not know why the idea should make him so unhappy, but it did.

Weasley said bluntly, "Don't be stupid, Malfoy. Why should I feel sorry for you?"

He met her gaze then, and she met his, and he knew she was remembering the night they'd spent together in the Room of Requirement. After a moment's silence, Ginny shook her head. "I don't feel sorry for you, Malfoy. I meant that, when I said it that night. I don't think it's a bad thing that you feel remorse for all the things you did. I just…don't think you should let it take over your life." She looked away awkwardly.

"Right." Draco's voice sounded hollow when he spoke. "So this was just about…finding me a distraction." She'd said as much, so why should that bother him?

"It was about finding a distraction," she said sharply, "as much for me as for you."

This startled him. "What? What do you mean?"

Ginny sighed. She let her broom fall to the ground and removed her hat, running a hand over her windswept hair. "The thing is…I've been thinking a lot, lately." She pulled her hair out of its ponytail and shook it out. "And I realized I've been…very angry. At the Slytherins, at first, only, it wasn't really you lot I was angry at. I've been angry at Voldemort, of course, and all his Death Eaters, but…I've also been angry with Harry. Because he wasn't here last year, which is stupid enough, but what's worse is…I've also been angry with…" She hesitated. "It sounds stupid to even say it."

Draco cleared his throat. She looked so vulnerable, so uncertain, fidgeting with her hair tie between her hands. So of course, he said the most encouraging thing he could think of, which was, "Don't worry, Weasley, you say stupid things all the time. I won't judge you."

She laughed at that. "I suppose that's why I'm telling you this." She inhaled a breath and went on. "I've been angry with Fred. My brother Fred." She clenched her hands around her hair tie. "He died last year. In the battle here."

She didn't have to tell him. He knew.

Ginny let out a long breath. "Which _does_ sound stupid." Slowly, she lowered herself down to the ground and sat, her knees pulled up before her and her arms slung over them. "But I realized, recently. I've been angry because it's _easier_ that way. It's easier to be angry at him, for dying, because otherwise—otherwise—"

"Otherwise you have to admit he's really gone," Draco said, and he was just as surprised to hear his words as Weasley was, judging by the way she looked at him.

"Yes," she said, and though that was all she said, Draco heard her unspoken question. Heaving his own sigh, he let his broomstick fall to the side and seated himself beside her, mirroring her pose.

"You told me before that I didn't lose anyone." He gazed straight ahead at the stands, rising up high before them. "Or that I didn't watch any friends die. But I did. I lost Vince—Crabbe. And I know he was a bloody terror last year, but…well, he was my oldest friend. I'd known him since we were little, before coming to Hogwarts, and even though he turned out that way, in the end…it was still hard. Losing him." He shook his head. "In fact, it was the last straw. The confirmation that my father's life wasn't for me."

Weasley stayed silent, but Draco could feel her looking at him. He plucked idly at a blade of grass and chucked it away from him. "So…I get it. Maybe not to the extent that you're going through, but. Being angry at your brother, that's not stupid. I understand."

With some difficulty, he forced himself to look at her. Her eyes glimmered with a strange light, as though she was seeing him for the first time, or seeing something about him she hadn't seen before. Maybe she was. A rush of hope awakened inside him, though whether that hope was for himself or something else entirely, he couldn't say.

Ginny pulled her hair tie over her wrist and clasped her hands before her. "Well. When I realized what I was doing, and why…I dunno. It's kind of a relief, not to be so angry anymore. But it also meant I had to face it all—everything that happened, especially losing Fred—and…try to deal with it."

"And are you?" Draco found he was desperate for her answer, desperate to know if it was possible.

She shrugged, but the roughness of her voice belied this casual gesture. "I don't know. I just try to make it from one day to the next. Sometimes, it hurts so much that I'm not sure I can do it, and sometimes, it hurts less, and, well…I just hope that, one day, it will always hurt less."

Draco stared at her, recognizing this sentiment at once. It was near exactly the same thing she'd said to him before. "So…that night…I mean—" he fumbled, feeling awkward for mentioning it. "What you said about…going on, day after day, and one day it might not be so hard anymore—you weren't just talking about me."

"No." She met his eyes briefly, just long enough for him to see the fleeting smile that flickered over her lips. "I wasn't."

Draco gazed at her a second longer, and then he looked up at the cold, gray sky. A sliver of sunlight peeked out from behind a drifting cloud, and though Draco could not feel its warmth, it was nice to know it was there.

"I think you can do it, you know," Ginny said suddenly. "Live with it, I mean. You can learn to live with what you did." She cast him a sidelong glance and added wryly, "You're a survivor, Malfoy."

Draco wasn't sure how he felt about that.

As though reading his mind, she said, "That's not a bad thing, you know. It means…" She paused, looking as though she was trying to decide what to say. Or how to say it. "It means that, you know, what you said. About being a coward. It's not true."

Draco's heart surged. He stared at Ginny in amazement, half-turning towards her. "Do you really think that?"

"I do." And she sounded so confident, so certain, as though it were not only her opinion, but proven fact. "So what you said, that you were afraid you could make the same choices over again…that's rubbish, Malfoy. For one thing, there's no use worrying over what may never happen, and for another…I just don't think you would." She leaned back, stretching her legs out before her. "Maybe that doesn't mean much, but—"

"It means everything," Draco said, and his voice was rough too.

Weasley arched an eyebrow at him.

He smiled grimly. "Coming from you, I mean."

"Oh." She tossed her head back. "Right."

"Right."

She looked at him then— _really_ looked at him, her eyes so keen and solemn that he felt locked in place. "Draco."

"Yeah?"

She sat up straight, and when she did, she seemed much closer than she was before. The small space between them suddenly felt alive, rife with magic, and even if Draco had wanted to pull away, he didn't think he could have.

"Look." She was so close that he could hear her breath stutter in her throat. "I want you to know that, when I asked you out here today…I wasn't planning this. All right?"

"Er…all right." Draco frowned. "Wait, planning what?"

"It's just…" She leaned towards him—so close that he couldn't keep his gaze from falling to her mouth, noting of the curve of her jaw and the shape of her lips. "Today, I'm feeling…curious."

She kissed him.

She actually kissed him. Her lips were on his, soft as a whisper, light as a spring breeze. A part of Draco was terrified, his heart like a thunderstorm in his chest. But he didn't pull away. Instead, he leaned into it, reaching a hand up to cup her cold cheek. Something gave way inside of him—some darkness, some pain, eking away with every second he kissed her.

And then, as quickly as it had begun, they both pulled away, just far enough to catch a breath. Draco's hand slipped from her cheek to her neck, his fingers tangling in his own scarf, burying beneath it until he could feel her pulse, fluttering beneath his touch.

He gulped for air and asked, "What are you doing?"

"The same thing you're doing, it would seem," was her breathless answer. Her eyes opened, and they were glittering and volatile and bold.

"I mean…why?" He was afraid to know, and yet he held onto her, also afraid to let go. "And don't say it's because you're feeling curious."

"It's because I'm feeling—" She shifted around and reached up to grasp his wrist, anchoring his hold on her. "It's because I…need this. Need you." She looked so grave. "I know it's mad, but…look, I was meant to go to Hogsmeade today, and see all my friends, but just the thought of it made me feel…so alone. And then I saw _you_ , in the courtyard, and you were alone, and I just thought—I think—I don't _know_ , Malfoy. Is that good enough for you?"

Draco stared at her. There was real frustration in her eyes, that she couldn't or didn't know how to explain herself. But he understood all the same. It was a wonder to think—because she was such a hero, and so revered and loved by everybody, but…Ginny Weasley was lonely. Just like he was.

So he said, his voice a soft hum, "Yeah. That's good enough for me."

He lifted his hand and smoothed it over her tousled hair, bringing her lips to his for another kiss. This time, he kissed her with abandon, with everything he had inside him, the good and the bad and all the things he hadn't sorted out yet. And as her lips parted beneath his, as he tangled his fingers in her hair, as she curled her hand behind his neck, he thought, maybe, that this could be enough. Enough to get by with, day after day, until it didn't hurt so much anymore.


End file.
